The Pub trade is dying - Minimum price for Alcohol?

al22

Some countries have a very low alcohl prices and no restrictions and still have no problems with excess drinking by youth etc.

Need to change a life style - more places to spent free time and without paying big entry money, just one point. Should be affordable to young and to everybody to spent a good time with laugh, meet friends and new people and without alcohol or overpriced soft drinks, etc.

Greed for money is a problem everywhere, I think. Not a cheap prices.

hatrickpatrick

TBH I'm going to start home brewing strong cider from apple juice. Apparently after buying a once off €50 kit with all the equipment, you can brew cider for about 75c a can. Would get back my original investment ridiculously fast if a can in the shops is going to approach €2 in price.

dr.fuzzenstein

al22 wrote: »

Some countries have a very low alcohl prices and no restrictions and still have no problems with excess drinking by youth etc.

Need to change a life style - more places to spent free time and without paying big entry money, just one point. Should be affordable to young and to everybody to spent a good time with laugh, meet friends and new people and without alcohol or overpriced soft drinks, etc.

Greed for money is a problem everywhere, I think. Not a cheap prices.

I go to Germany every now and then. Was walking past the booze shelf in Aldi and did a double take. I thought they made an error. Bottles of spirit at €5 per 750 ml!
Beer, €1.99 FOR A SIXPACK!
Where there hoards of people roaming the streets drunk, pissing, fighting and puking? Of course not!
Ireland has stupidly high prices for alcohol already, the government is pursuing a policy that doesn't work, but of course in Ireland we don't do positive initiatives, we don't want to know why something is the way it is and how can we prevent it, we have to weapons at our disposal, tax hammer and ban hammer and when both don't work, we stand around wringing our hands saying "I don't understand it! I hit it with both hammers! This should have worked! Well, better hit it again".
It's like watching a chimp trying to operate a forklift.

edit:
Ireland, funnily enough is a very authoritarian country compared to Germany. In Germany people try to work out stuff, in Ireland it's "You do this! I told you! Why won't you do as you're told!". In Germany we have lived with rules for long enough to relax a bit about them and see them for what they are, helpful guides for a functioning community. In Ireland, you regard rules as something punitive, nothing positive. I guess it's a hangover from the occupation. You bucked rules for 700 years and now you are completely incapable to make them work in a positive way.
A German official once told me "Well, there's the rules as they are written down and then there's real life". In a funny way the Irish are more obsessed about rules and regulations. It really is messed up.

OldNotWIse

MadYaker wrote: »

Well they'd have completely change what they have proposed to something other than minimum pricing, which they haven't.

Irish government in shock claim that it didn't make good on it's word!

OldNotWIse

Custardpi wrote: »

Unfortunately what doesn't seem to get mentioned is that there are actually quite a few great beers that will almost certainly disappear when these laws come in. Dunnes have an own brand "Germania" lager that is really tasty & brewed for them in Germany on Reinheitsgebot rules. Spar have a similar lager that isn't quite as good but decent enough nonetheless. Lidl's Perlenbacher is also lovely.There's a few others that I'm sure fellow beer drinkers can think of.

These are beers that are reasonably priced & would compete very favourably with the likes of Carlsberg & Heineken in terms of taste. The idea that the latter are "premium" beers in any other area but price could only be sustained by someone who has had their taste buds removed at birth.
All of the aforementioned beers would fall well below what the minimum price for a beercan is likely to be pegged at. The intention is very much to drive them out of the market so that the choice for beer drinkers will be overpriced "premium" pish or even more overpriced though at least decent craft beer.
Having a few cans of lager doesn't make one a problem drinker & it shouldn't have to cost an arm and a leg.

Actually yes. I am more of a wine drinker myslef (when I drink at home "like a weirdo" :P) but Lidl do a really nice can of perlenbacher wheat beer, around €1.19 I think.

george67

The first time I went to Holland for holidays with the family (not Amsterdam) I bought s crate of Heineken for 7euros and you get 10 cent a bottle for returns .
You quite often see parents and teenage kids having a meal out and everybody is drinking beer .
Its legall to buy beer at 16 there 18 for spirits
They don't seem to have the huge hang ups we have about alcohol .
They seem to treat it as a part of everyday life .
They even have a special shelf on the shopping trollies to put your weekly crate .

In this country there is a panic generated by the media around binge drinking and how it's got out of hand I'm nearly 50 and we probably drank more as teenagers in the early eights as the teens do today
But we hadn't alcopops we had 2 liters of special vat and vodka and mi-widi .

So I think it is down to education rather than taxation if you want to solve the problem .


I think its a cop-out from the govt (as usual)

Capt'n Midnight

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The gov't won't get a red cent extra

Well if you make the (quite likely) assumption that people will buy just as much drink as before even if this is introduced and take into account there will be more VAT payable as the sale price is now higher then the governemnt could very well see more or, even with a small fall off in sales but more VAT being paid, things staying the same.

al22 wrote: »

Need to change a life style - more places to spent free time and without paying big entry money, just one point. Should be affordable to young and to everybody to spent a good time with laugh, meet friends and new people and without alcohol or overpriced soft drinks, etc.

Every now and then a person suggests that we need more things to do or places to go in order for people to drink less as "all they have is the pub". I dont buy this argument as most people go to the pub because they want to go to the pub and drink or drink at home because they want to.

You could give me a 100 alcohol free things to do of a Friday or Saturday night but I'd still chose the pub 9 times out of 10 as I enjoy it a lot.

Custardpi

Personally I'd be very surprised if in the budget after this measure comes in the government doesn't increase duty on alcohol to some degree, knowing that the retailers can just absorb it.

Caliden

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

edit:
Ireland, funnily enough is a very authoritarian country compared to Germany. In Germany people try to work out stuff, in Ireland it's "You do this! I told you! Why won't you do as you're told!". In Germany we have lived with rules for long enough to relax a bit about them and see them for what they are, helpful guides for a functioning community. In Ireland, you regard rules as something punitive, nothing positive. I guess it's a hangover from the occupation. You bucked rules for 700 years and now you are completely incapable to make them work in a positive way.
A German official once told me "Well, there's the rules as they are written down and then there's real life". In a funny way the Irish are more obsessed about rules and regulations. It really is messed up.

Ireland is very similar to the U.S. in this way.

"Those are the rules and that's that".

Heard a story recently of 2 children who were staying with their aunt and she made them nutella sandwiches for lunch. School has a ban on sweets/chocolate so the sandwiches were confiscated and the children went hungry instead of doing something logical.

ScumLord

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

edit:
Ireland, funnily enough is a very authoritarian country compared to Germany. In Germany people try to work out stuff, in Ireland it's "You do this! I told you! Why won't you do as you're told!". In Germany we have lived with rules for long enough to relax a bit about them and see them for what they are, helpful guides for a functioning community. In Ireland, you regard rules as something punitive, nothing positive. I guess it's a hangover from the occupation. You bucked rules for 700 years and now you are completely incapable to make them work in a positive way.
A German official once told me "Well, there's the rules as they are written down and then there's real life". In a funny way the Irish are more obsessed about rules and regulations. It really is messed up.

Some Irish people. The ones that like to make the rules might like rules, but the rest of us that are supposed to be following them don't. It's only very recently that Irish people have been in any way convinced to follow the most basic rules like don't dump your rubbish at the side of the road.

The people in charge do like to impose the rules they think should work and when they don't work they try to enforce them more and blame everyone else for not following the rules properly. They seem to be embarrassed that they could possibly make a mistake and will never admit they did make a mistake. We don't have a culture of studying the problem, coming up with a range of solutions and picking the one that works best. Someone just comes up with something off the top of their head and makes implementing it a matter of supporting the person rather than a plan.

In Ireland people do try to impose themselves and their values onto everyone around them and curse anyone who doesn't go along with them. We see it all the time in discussions here. They tend to go straight to opposition.

syklops

MadYaker wrote: »

You don't know the profit margins they are getting though. I worked in retail part time for a while and own brand products always have the lowest mark up, which means less money for the retailer per unit sold. On a per bottle basis the retailer makes more money from selling Smirnoff than they do from selling their own brand vodka. Minimum pricing won't change that, the money isn't going to the retailer it's going to the government.

This is where we are at odds. This isnt a tax with the extra going to the government, its a minimum price.

Mallagio

They know the majority won't stop buying at any price here and the money will flow no matter what.

Looking out for our health my arse.

pcardin

Custardpi wrote: »

Unfortunately what doesn't seem to get mentioned is that there are actually quite a few great beers that will almost certainly disappear when these laws come in. Dunnes have an own brand "Germania" lager that is really tasty & brewed for them in Germany on Reinheitsgebot rules. Spar have a similar lager that isn't quite as good but decent enough nonetheless. Lidl's Perlenbacher is also lovely.There's a few others that I'm sure fellow beer drinkers can think of.

These are beers that are reasonably priced & would compete very favourably with the likes of Carlsberg & Heineken in terms of taste. The idea that the latter are "premium" beers in any other area but price could only be sustained by someone who has had their taste buds removed at birth.
All of the aforementioned beers would fall well below what the minimum price for a beercan is likely to be pegged at. The intention is very much to drive them out of the market so that the choice for beer drinkers will be overpriced "premium" pish or even more overpriced though at least decent craft beer.
Having a few cans of lager doesn't make one a problem drinker & it shouldn't have to cost an arm and a leg.

Aldi sells popular Bavarian beer SPATEN and also Berliner Kindler. Them both are far superior beers than Heineken or Carlsberg.

OldNotWIse

Mallagio wrote: »

They know the majority won't stop buying at any price here and the money will flow no matter what.

Looking out for our health my arse.

Same reasoning was used to increase tobacco revenue...to "save us". :rolleyes:

RIchieNouveau

I agree pcardin. 2 euro for Spaten is a great price in Aldi. I think their Rheinbacher pils is as good as Heineken etc, but not quite as good as Lidl's Perlenbacher.

dr.fuzzenstein

pcardin wrote: »

Aldi sells popular Bavarian beer SPATEN and also Berliner Kindler. Them both are far superior beers than Heineken or Carlsberg.

You're not comparing like with like. Heineken and Carlsberg aren't beer in my book.
Carlsberg is pretty close to beer. Spaten is the butt of jokes in Bavaria (Lass dir raten, kotze Spaten, I advise you to throw up Spaten) and the Bavarians know a thing or two about beer.
I was never crazy about all the Weissbier on sale everywhere now, though. You want decent beer? Get Krombacher. Never tried Berliner Kindle.

ScumLord

pcardin wrote: »

Aldi sells popular Bavarian beer SPATEN and also Berliner Kindler. Them both are far superior beers than Heineken or Carlsberg.

A glass of milk is a far superior beer to Heineken.

rubadub

MadYaker wrote: »

Minimum pricing won't change that, the money isn't going to the retailer it's going to the government.

What gave you this impression? I know many people think this is the case, especially since the government, publicans & off licence owners have seemingly kept quiet about this point.

I gave an example of the small revenue increase due to VAT

rubadub wrote: »

I expect some offies might introduce loophole freebies or something.

Offies in remote areas could clean up if they wanted, just remain stocking cheapo beers and actually take the expensive ones off the shelf, leaving people with no choice unless they want to travel elsewhere. So they would be creaming in the extra profit. -Remember this suggestion is NOT an increase in excise, the only extra the government will seemingly get is the VAT.

So if a can is currently €1, this is a ex-vat selling price of 81cent, and vat of 19cent, and the government get excise.

If the can goes to €2.20, the ex-vat selling price is €1.79 and vat of 41cent, excise is the same. So the government get 22cent more, while the offie get 98cent more.

MadYaker wrote: »

Smirnoff however hasn't been affected because it's price is too high to be affected by minimum pricing, and there is no reason for the retailer to increase the price of Smirnoff.

The thought is that the likes of smirnoff will increase the wholesale price, so they get a cut of the money, rather than the retailer creaming in all this extra profit. The thought is also that they might increase it a lot more, not just to match the minimum price difference, but to increase it to have it above the minimum pricing level to keep up this nonsense impression that they are "premium".

SeanW

Boskowski wrote: »

This is so funny. They're all about free market principles this and small government that. Until some powerful business association sees their profits dwindling that is. Then its all screams for intervention and regulation.

This government is most certainly not about small government.

The only choice we seem to have is FG/FF/Lab (radical left) vs. Sinn Fein, Socialists etc (dramatically, super-radical left).

dr.fuzzenstein

ScumLord wrote: »

A glass of milk donkey piss is a far superior beer to Heineken.

pcardin

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

You're not comparing like with like. Heineken and Carlsberg aren't beer in my book.
Carlsberg is pretty close to beer. Spaten is the butt of jokes in Bavaria (Lass dir raten, kotze Spaten, I advise you to throw up Spaten) and the Bavarians know a thing or two about beer.
I was never crazy about all the Weissbier on sale everywhere now, though. You want decent beer? Get Krombacher. Never tried Berliner Kindle.

Neither in my book. As for Spaten, it's big in Muenchen at least, Spaten Haus and all that, been in their brewery too. I like it. And I know Krombacher well, good beer but it's from Kreuztal man, ffs, what's this to do with Bavarians?
Berliner Kindl is a beer around 1872, not the best from Berlin area again but it's not about who is the best, it's about who gets the licence to sell in Ireland.

dr.fuzzenstein

pcardin wrote: »

Neither in my book. As for Spaten, it's big in Muenchen at least, Spaten Haus and all that, been in their brewery too. I like it. And I know Krombacher well, good beer but it's from Kreuztal man, ffs, what's this to do with Bavarians?
Berliner Kindl is a beer around 1872, not the best from Berlin area again but it's not about who is the best, it's about who gets the licence to sell in Ireland.

Yeah, I was talking about the local beer where I lived, if you live in rural areas people there are all about their local beer and trashtalking anything else.
What has Kreuztal got to do with Bavarians? Well, my granny is from there and i lived in Bavaria, so there! ;-)
Besides its nice beer. Lots of non bavarian beers are nice, Jever, Bit, Flens and the proper Becks. Yes, Becks is more than just non alcoholic piss, its proper beer.

suicide_circus

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Yeah, I was talking about the local beer where I lived, if you live in rural areas people there are all about their local beer and trashtalking anything else.
What has Kreuztal got to do with Bavarians? Well, my granny is from there and i lived in Bavaria, so there! ;-)
Besides its nice beer. Lots of non bavarian beers are nice, Jever, Bit, Flens and the proper Becks. Yes, Becks is more than just non alcoholic piss, its proper beer.

Yes I have a lot of time for Becks when in Germany, seems different to what you get here and the UK but that could be in my head

pcardin

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Yeah, I was talking about the local beer where I lived, if you live in rural areas people there are all about their local beer and trashtalking anything else.
What has Kreuztal got to do with Bavarians? Well, my granny is from there and i lived in Bavaria, so there! ;-)
Besides its nice beer. Lots of non bavarian beers are nice, Jever, Bit, Flens and the proper Becks. Yes, Becks is more than just non alcoholic piss, its proper beer.

Deutsch?

dr.fuzzenstein

pcardin wrote: »

Deutsch?

Jawohl mein herr.

pcardin

Lang hier?

dr.fuzzenstein

pcardin wrote: »

Lang hier?

Viel zu lang!
About 20 years and I still think the attitude of the Irish to alcohol is messed up, but still not as bad as their attitude to rules and regulations.
The con-brigade thinks alcohol is evil and must be banned, everyone who drinks is depraved and it should cost €50 per pint.
The law is never used to do anything positive here, it's all ban this and ban that and tax the other. No wonder that the first reaction to any law is "how do we get around this"
So in the end there's just two camps on opposite sides and either side dismisses the other.
It's just about "how do I fix his wagon" instead of "how can we solve this". So in the end it's just about entrenchment and blindly defending the official line.
Personally I blame the Brits! :P

darkpagandeath

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Viel zu lang!
About 20 years and I still think the attitude of the Irish to alcohol is messed up, but still not as bad as their attitude to rules and regulations.
The con-brigade thinks alcohol is evil and must be banned, everyone who drinks is depraved and it should cost €50 per pint.
The law is never used to do anything positive here, it's all ban this and ban that and tax the other. No wonder that the first reaction to any law is "how do we get around this"
So in the end there's just two camps on opposite sides and either side dismisses the other.
It's just about "how do I fix his wagon" instead of "how can we solve this". So in the end it's just about entrenchment and blindly defending the official line.
Personally I blame the Brits! :P

Nah I blame the CC hang over on rules and banning stuff.

elperello

I think this letter in the Irish Times sums it up nicely -


https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/diageo-and-alcohol-awareness-campaigns-1.2119041

senordingdong

elperello wrote: »

I think this letter in the Irish Times sums it up nicely -


https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/diageo-and-alcohol-awareness-campaigns-1.2119041

A good point, but $$$$$$$$ is really what it really comes down to.