Beoir Magazine
21
Issue 2
beer festival, raising the organisation’s profile. Latterly there was a meeting in Dublin, which was hosted by the newest member Beoir. Ireland is a country with an increasing interest in beer that is not a stout and there have been a number of new breweries set up in recent years. The meeting created a bit of a media stir giving support to this small but fast growing consumer organisation.
The EBCU now comprises of 13 countries who send up to two delegates to the meeting. They in turn elect a small Executive of five (all unpaid) who run the organisation on a daily basis. The meetings are held every six months and provide a route for sharing best practice, good ideas, support and issues. At the meeting in Ireland, Sweden raised their issues about the proposed changes in the way their state alcohol off sales monopoly, the Systembolaget, works, which would have an adverse impact on their small breweries. This is turn, would impact on sales of imported Danish beer and just shows the interaction and impact of one country’s decision on another.
Another key role is giving European beer consumers a voice as MEPs and the EU Commissioners are often looking to engage with just one body. The lobbying has been helpful in assisting Belgian brewers fight against a French proposal regarding high strength beer that would have had a huge impact on Belgian imports into France. It was also instrumental in highlighting to the UK, the Belgian and the Netherlands sliding
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beer duty scale and assisting the UK with the arguments that led to its
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introduction. This, of course, helped the growth of small breweries which
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the UK is now enjoying.
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So what is the relevance of EBCU today? It has established relations with the Brewers of Europe and the European Beer Club of MEPs, which provides useful channels of communication. At the moment, campaign-
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ing is centred around the agreed manifesto, which is about cost, diversity of beer and information for beer consumers. Needless to say, this includes beer duty, where the Nordic countries have a hard time. The stance being taken is that beer is a low alcohol drink of the general public
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for every occasion.
Spring - 2015