“I don’t want to be constrained”

All this month we are featuring beer over 7.5% to highlight the madness of the UK Treasury increasing duty on beer over that alcohol by volume. It’s extremely frustrating for drinkers to have to pay more for our favourite products when the reasons for raising prices seem so contrived. But for British brewers, it’s far more than a mere annoyance. Some of the UK’s most innovate breweries have recently commented on how the HSBD (High Strength Beer Duty) rise will affect them – such as Hardknott, Gadd’s, and Magic Rock.

In particular, one post that stood out was from Justin Hawke of Somerset’s Moor Beer Company. Established in 1996, since they were taken over by Justin and his partner Maryann in 2007 they have gone from strength to strength (if you’ll excuse the pun). Justin used experience gained in his native California, and from travels in Europe, to produce a range of beers for cask and bottle. He took time out of his busy schedule to speak with us about the HSBD. Fans of Moor’s strong beers – look away now…

Justin first explained his brewing ethos – to foster a bond between the producers of the local brewing ingredients, himself as the brewer, and the drinking public. When customers head to the farm shop near the brewery, they not only buy his products – these relationships benefit communities of producers, whether they are farmers, cheesemakers, or brewers. Wherever possible, Moor beers are unfined – he really seems to want to go about things the right way, and to educate drinkers on the choices they have at their local pub or bottle shop. This is one reason he’s so against the HSBD rise:-

“We make strong beer for sharing, we try and do interesting things. Of course our session-strength beers are important, but stronger beers have more scope. I don’t want to be constrained and compromised. People will still find cheap things to get from A to B if they want to drink – we aren’t competing with that.”

Justin had written in his post that they will be re-thinking all of Moor’s stronger beer as a direct result of the duty rise. Running through the list, we spoke about each one in turn:-

Old Freddy Walker 7.3% (cask) 7.5% (bottle)

“We just didn’t get enough guidance from the Government on exactly where the threshold would fall – we had a label run to produce – so we erred on the side of caution and are dropping it to 7.4%.”

Fusion 8.0%

“We won a Platinum medal at the 2011 Mondial de la Biere festival in Montreal – I’m showcasing Fusion again at this week’s Mondial festival in Strasbourg. But we’re not brewing it again at present.”

JJJ IPA 9.0% (cask) 9.5% (bottle)

“The current run in bottle shops at the moment will be the last for the UK – we’re suspending domestic production. We send between 90-95% of JJJ IPA to Europe, as there’s no duty payable for export.”

Imperial Stout [in the pipeline]

“We had been thinking about an imperial stout, somewhere in the mid-8% range. But we’re not going to be producing it now, and I don’t want to compromise by dropping the abv below 7.5%.”

So you want a definite outcome of the increased duty? There you go – one of Britain’s more forward leaning brewers is re-thinking all of their strong beers. The creativity involved in formulating these beers is something that can really help a brewer – and this duty rise has instantly taken the momentum out of Moor Beer Co. Not that they can’t – or won’t – still do well with their core range, but it’s easy to imagine how frustrating this is for Justin and his team.

The supreme irony in all of this is that he’s heading over to Europe to showcase a multi award-winning beer, in the full knowledge that he won’t be producing it again for a while.* Arguably their most favoured big beer – JJJ IPA – will be extremely rare to British drinkers, with the vast majority heading overseas for export. Beer fans over the Channel and the North Sea – count your blessings. Those closer to home, support Justin and his fellow brewers as much as possible, while you can…

*There is another reason for this – Fusion is barrel aged, and the current shortage of barrels means there’s very little storage space available. But at 8%, if they can produce another run, at the very least it will face a significant price increase.

Many thanks to Justin for taking the time to speak with us. You can visit Moor’s website here…