Minimum alcohol pricing is nigh

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120624925#Comment_120624925

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625011#Comment_120625011

By any metric you apply beer is not cheap in Ireland.

Prices in the six counties, prices in the rest of the UK, prices in most of Europe.

All of the above are cheaper.

Your arguments do not stand up.

Potential-Monke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625023#Comment_120625023

True, but in my beer drinking days I avoided the cheapest too. Pish is still pish, alcohol or no. Beer is still cheap in comparison.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625070#Comment_120625070

We're not in those countries though, are we? In comparison to other products in the Republic of Ireland, I would consider it cheap.

People are very defensive of their cheap alcohol.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625071#Comment_120625071

Surely there's not some exceptionalism applying to us that we need to pay more than all our neighbours.

Ordinary beer has gone up by 70% since January 2022 and you think it is still cheap.

With respect it is not what you consider that matters the plain fact is its not cheap.

Potential-Monke

With respect your opinion is worth the same as mine. I think it's cheap. You don't. Opinions are funny like that. We pay more than our neighbours for most things. Beer is very low on the list of things we need to reduce the price on first.

And it seems my opinion is the prevailing one, because I see little to no push outside of this thread of people against it. Most don't care it affects them so little. And that brings the conversation back around in circles.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625146#Comment_120625146

It's not just my opinion it is an indisputable fact that beer is not cheap in Ireland.

It's not about opinions.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625146#Comment_120625146

Thats why we point to facts such as comparisons with our neighbour and EU peers and what it cost pre MUP.

The price difference as a percentage is well out of line with those other 'most things'.

Your post contradicts itself. There are lots of complaints across boards about the price of 'most things' doesnt mean people think they are cheap. So you have no grounds for saying your opinion is the prevailing one.

Potential-Monke

Very defensive over an opinion. My grounds for saying it's a prevailing opinion is, as I stated, that I hear no one talking about it. Only in this thread. But it's still just an opinion. But I'm not trying to tell other people their opinions are wrong.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625232#Comment_120625232

Why dont you ask them?

Very defensive? No I think you are confused about what is an opinion, a statement of fact, and an opinion about opinions. You have made an assumption. There could be other reasons they arent talking about it. That doesnt seem to have occured to you. That doesnt mean they think alcohol here is cheap.

Fr Tod Umptious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120623660#Comment_120623660

There is no cheap beer anymore due to MUP.

Hold on a second now.

For years on this thread I have argued that the price of off license booze pre MUP was very cheap relative to what it used to be, back in the 90s for example.

Yet I was constantly shouted down by the same crowd that avoided the point I was making and was told it was not cheap because "bla, bla bla you can get a bottle of such and such in Germany for x, or Spain for y, etc etc "

But are you now admitting that beer was cheap in Ireland pre MUP ?

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625024#Comment_120625024

Some people like Molson!

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625070#Comment_120625070

Nope. Its cheap.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625259#Comment_120625259

I recognise the username and I'm fairly sure I never shouted you down.

Posters here, myself included did indeed point out lower prices in Germany, Spain and most of the rest of Europe.

The prices in other countries are now even lower by comparison to here thanks to MUP.

Ordinary 4.3% beer has increased by 70% in price since before MUP so it's fair to say it was cheap then compared to now.

That doesn't mean it was cheap then compared to other countries.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625332#Comment_120625332

That's not really any help at all.

If you have point to make I'll consider it.

CrabRevolution

Referencing Orwell is a bit of a cliché, but he had a great phrase "Where words part ways with meaning".

This thread is definitely an example of words and meaning having a messy divorce. There's posters arguing that a price enforced under threat of prosecution by the state is "the market price" and that the actual price of something has no bearing on whether or not it's "cheap". The 2nd most expensive alcohol in the EU can be called "cheap" because they declare it to be so.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625419#Comment_120625419

That's a new one on me. Is it from one of his books?

CrabRevolution

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625491#Comment_120625491

It's in Politics and the English Language, though I mangled it slightly, the real quote is "Words and meaning have parted company".

dxhound2005

He would be accused of being a pedant or a Grammar Nazi if he was on Boards. It seems that "dumbing down" was a thing even back in 1946.

Orwell chooses five passages of text which "illustrate various of the mental vices from which we now suffer." The samples are: by Harold Laski ("five negatives in 53 words"), Lancelot Hogben (mixed metaphors), an essay by Paul Goodman[2] on psychology in the July 1945 issue of Politics ("simply meaningless"), a communist pamphlet ("an accumulation of stale phrases") and a reader's letter in Tribune (in which "words and meaning have parted company"). From these, Orwell identifies a "catalogue of swindles and perversions" which he classifies as "dying metaphors", "operators or verbal false limbs", "pretentious diction" and "meaningless words". (See cliches, prolixity, peacock terms and weasel words.)

Orwell notes that writers of modern prose tend not to write in concrete terms but use a "pretentious Latinized style" (compare Anglish). He claims writers find it is easier to gum together long strings of words than to pick words specifically for their meaning—particularly in political writing, where Orwell notes that "[o]rthodoxy ... seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style". Political speech and writing are generally in defence of the indefensible and so lead to a euphemistic inflated style.

Orwell criticises bad writing habits which spread by imitation. He argues that writers must think more clearly because thinking clearly "is a necessary first step toward political regeneration". He later emphasises that he was not "considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought".

Malbac

Luckily Guinness is 5 Euro in one of my local pubs.

Gusser09

https://www.thejournal.ie/alcohol-labelling-law-signed-6073656-May2023/

Minister Donnelly needs to calrify how this will be implemented in pubs. If its on my beer can or bottle it should be plastered across pint glasses too. Its that simple.

What a bunch of do gooder nanny state morons. Ruining anything and everything they can.

They now need to after the food industry and tackle mcdonalds etc.

Gusser09

Thank christ we live on an island with a second market. Im done buying beer in ireland.

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625491#Comment_120625491

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625544#Comment_120625544

How's that pint glass investigation going? found any sources to help understand how wrong you were?

I admitted my mistake, just waiting for you to be an adult here too.

Gusser09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120626082#Comment_120626082

So you agree? If warnings are printed on cans and bottles they should be clearly visible when enjoying a pint in the pubs at an extortionate cost?

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120625011#Comment_120625011

75c in Euro2, which is still vastly overpriced for a can of sugary water which costs less to make than the can it's in

Mass market beers cost very little to make also, industrial scale brewing is an extremely profitable business and MUP means their profits increase even more.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120626145#Comment_120626145

I wouldn't encourage them to plaster pubs with warning signs just to get one over on the publicans.

I know they sold us out over MUP but two wrongs don't make a right

dxhound2005

Brussels won't be able to order us to put anything on pint glasses, or other glasses, including plastic "glasses". But no doubt the idea is already being circulated on the internet. Their rules regarding liquids sold in open containers for immediate consumption recognise reality, not the fantasy being promoted here. The amount of liquid is only required to be a nominal measure.

The industry has three years to come up with solutions. If they wanted, and it doesn't already exist, they could invent a machine which would scan and analyse drinks in glasses, and print out a label to attach to the glass. Think something like the size of a microwave oven. But I can't see them doing it just to satisfy cranks, when the regulations do not make them do it.

Gusser09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120626537#Comment_120626537

Nothing to do with cranks. The home drinker is getting shafted as usual with this shite. I'd argue that most of the issues you see at the weekends in large towns and cities is directly related to alcohol being purchased in the pubs and not the lad sitting at home with a 6 pack. it seems to me a bit hypocritical that we wouldn't try to tackle where the majority of problems actually occur but hit the off license sales again. Every pub you go into now has branded glasses depending on what you are drinking. So why can't they be printed with exactly the same warning that cans and bottles come with? Nonsense to suggest they can't and shouldn't.

You know what will happen next? The warnings will have to be printed in a minimum size so it can be clearly visible.

Also make no mistake. AAI's intention is to go down the route of cigarette packing and have generic packaging. In other words a bottle of gin and a bottle of wine will have to look exactly the same.

When they aren't happy with that it'll be state run off licenses which close at 5pm. Minimum age will be pushed to 21.

What I'm asking is where will it all stop? I think all of the above is a probability with this crowd. AAI have an agenda against the home drinker and off license sales which doesn't seem to extend to licensed premises for some reason. That is as clear as day.

dxhound2005

It will stop when you stop making up stuff in your head.

thesandeman

Posters only for pubs according to the smug minister on the news just now.

Gusser09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120627027#Comment_120627027

Donnelly is spineless so it's hardly a shock.

As I've said AAI have an agenda with the off license sales and market. This won't end here. It'll be generic packaging next. Within 5 years I'd think.

2smiggy

no wonder all this is happening when you have spoofing morons like harris/donnelly there