Minimum alcohol pricing is nigh

Get on to them on Twitter

There doesnt appear to be a straight forward way out of it. One would hope that common sense would prevail but its doubtful. Publicans seem to be of the opinion that we will all rush back. That wont be the case. 15 pints is about 90 quid in my local give or take. So do the Math.

I'm not against tackling the overly cheap sale of alcohol per say. But this is just arbritrary. No reason why single units should have been tackled. Like say a single can or anything less than 8 cans cant be sold below a certain price. Slabs at Christmas etc should have been left at 24 quid maybe. Most would have probably taken that.

We would end up paying for that.

€2 a can of beer is no way a rip off, probably cheaper by volume than stuff like Red Bull, certainly cheaper than coffees in many places.

With how many publicans we have in the dail that will never happen and that's how it's very obvious this is all about pubs and nothing to do with health

Well then by your own logic it's even more of a rip off now.

I know what you mean the €10 seriously spoiled us.

German prices at home 🙂

To be fair that's just your opinion that it's muck.

Most of the Irish craft brewers are putting out some really good and innovative beers. Few world awards for them as well so I'd say it's not really muck.

They're not hiding flavours by using citrus. What you were tasting was the hops that were added to give it flavour. Certainly not hiding anything.

I think it's great that we have loads of Irish brewers trying new things and as a consumer it's giving us more choice.

Unfortunately with MUP I think we'll have less choice now as some beers, wines etc will be quietly discontinued as they see sales drop or people stop buying them completely due to the cost.

Not good for consumers.

This doesn't affect me as much as it would have years ago. I drink a lot less and switched to craft beers some years ago. I get that some dislike the taste but I couldn't go back to cans of Carlsberg or Heineken for love nor money.

It's a disgrace that this has been implemented on health grounds when other measures would've worked much better

I realize that the original purpose of MUP was to cripple competitive prices in the off trade to discourage people drinking at home in favour of the pub trade. Their 2011 manifesto mentions this very fact.

If the government were so supportive of the pub trade, they should've done away with licensing laws and closing hours so pubs and nightclubs could stay open for as long as they please and be as competitive as they want to be.

Licensing laws such as late licenses automatically build risk into any entrepreneur who is going the publican route with their business. The increasingly stringent drink driving laws were the icing on the cake for many pubs in rural areas.

Of course, they are too stingy to eradicate licensing laws because they profit from them. This recent move (over a decade in the making) to attack the off-licenses is in my opinion, a bid to keep the restrictions they've imposed on the on-trade bolstered. This way, they retain control over both the on-trade and off-trade.

That previous comment I made was about how angry I am that NGOs and their zealotry driven medalling have had such a detrimental and livelihood ruining effect. Anyway, I have said what I can on the matter.

Was in Tesco and Dunnes earlier today and I noticed this.

Tesco: Druids Celtic Cider; 4 x 500ml 6% €9.50

Dunnes: Druids Celtic Cider; 4 x 440ml 4.8% €7

Difference is 1.2% Alcohol and €2.50 in cost.

Love the fact that you can consider every €5 bottle to be piss in LIDL etc

Nothing cheap about €5 a bottle either in European standards

Yes and to be fair, I did say it was my opinion. Admittedly 'muck' was a a lot harsher than I actually meant or think. I do believe that the citrus is used to disguise the flavour, but understand it is often used to enhance existing flavours from the hops, citrus fruit being one that often is from the hops. It is done with almost all of the Irish ones I have tried, and there are very few craft breweries that don't, bar many having one or maybe two flavours that don't. That said I agree with you saying that it is good we have more choice (a lot of the same choice imo), and it is definitely a bad thing what MUP may do to some of the smaller breweries, although I think if the cheaper stuff goes up to the same price as those, and they are left alone, then more people may try them at the same or similar price. There seems to be very little unique experimentation with flavours here. Again, imho.

I do think though that many of the craft beers are okay but much prefer to swap around with the old worldly beers, and they are going to take a big thwack with MUP, It's almost as if they want us to only have Heineken, Guinness and Budweiser available throughout the whole country.

MUP seems it does a lot more harm than good.

Ah c'mon. You need to check your tongue isn't made of plastic or something.