Yorkshire Coast pubs and breweries react to alcohol duty changes
It's now based on the strength of drinks
Last updated 7th Aug 2023
We are hearing how Yorkshire Coast pubs and breweries are having to increase their prices due to changes in taxing alcohol.
It is based on the strength of drinks now which means some will now cost more like wines and spirits.
Luke Pentith is the co-founder of Whitby Distillery and said: "The duty has always been a huge part of our costs and you're looking at around £8 per bottle, so for people coming into this market it's a challenge certainly just getting going. Every batch that we produce we've got a duty bill of around £3,000.
"With our pricing as well to our customers, we've actually tried to absorb as much of that cost over the past few years as possible and just look for efficiencies to keep ourselves level as a business, but with this duty change it's kind of pushed the limit now of what we can do before we've got to reassess our price position.
"It's a 10 percent rise for spirits. It's an extra 80p per bottle which for us works out at around £300 per batch and we are often doing three to four batches a week, so it's a huge amount of money over the course of a year and that's all currently going to be taken off our profits."
Mike Hirst is the landlord of The Albert pub on North Marine Road in Scarborough and said: "Although I don't really agree with it at the present moment in time when everybody's struggling to pay the bills and everything else, at least they've left draught beer alone which is a great help because the majority of our turnover is in draught beer. It's not great for customers who don't drink draught beer. I have a lady who comes in quite regularly who drinks wine and all the spirit drinkers are going to suffer.
"I think most customers are obviously not happy. They're never happy when the price goes up because they just expect it to stay at the same price and I wish it did, because when I started drinking it was about 25p a pint, so obviously it's gone up an awful lot since then. I think my customers understand that I don't put prices up just so I can make more money, they know I've put it up because I had to.
"We haven't really considered making changes at the moment but it's something we would do if we noticed a difference like regular customers not coming in as often or whatever, we may have to do something about that. It's just one of those things where people get used to things going up all the time but it certainly hasn't gone up as much as food has. We could have done without the rise because people are already struggling."