Alcohol is taxed at the relevant rate regardless of its place of sale, you need to look at the pub co's and brewers to see where the faults lay.

It's no different to paying fuel duties though. The treasury wants to collect excise, so they look for the softest targets.

Just like when people moan about paying £1.40 per litre for fuel, then when they go to kiosk to pay, will happily pick up a 500ml bottle of water and pay 80p+ for it without a second thought.

The biggest travesty will be if the suggested 40p per unit of alcohol is introduced. That money won't even get near the treasury, instead this government (and our northern British friends) seem to want to legislate to increase a retailer's profit margin.

Agree, except that as has been easily shown by CAMRA, the Treasury is actually losing money by increasing duty. And that is without taking into account the additional cost to the public purse, paying benefits to the thousands of ex-licensed trade workers thrown out of work.

Sort of agree, but the supermarkets don't want minimum pricing, they love to use cheap beer as a loss-leader to attract people into stores. Tesco and the rest regularly have promotions where they sell (eg) Carlsberg in packs which comes out at around 70p a pint. I have no clue what they pay for it, (and it is by no means the cheapest beer the supermarket sells) but the brewers won't sell to the pubs at anywhere near the supermarkets selling price, never mind buying price.

Ironically, the price of decent bottled beer in supermarkets has conversely shot through the roof, you can often be looking at £2 for a 500ml bottle.

The publicans are up in arms about it but one enterprising lad has opened his furniture shop as a bar and there's buggerall the licensing authorities can do about it

The publicans are up in arms about it but one enterprising lad has opened his furniture shop as a bar and there's buggerall the licensing authorities can do about it

Not true.

Supermarkets regularly sell alcohol below their buying price as a loss leader to entice buyers in. That is why pub prices seem so high.

Add in that the beer that supermarkets sell cheap is the tasteless mass produced crp - Carling, Smiths, Guiness - that is churned out by the millions of gallons and most certainly not the craft brewer end of things. Look at those beers and the price in a supermarket is suddenly comparable with bar prices.

But that doesn't mean the tax is different, alcohol duty is paid on it at the same rate regardless of its sales price.

I also don't believe supermarkets sell anything below cost (to them) price.

Having dealt with supermarkets then no, neither do I.

Knowing someone who worked for Carlsberg though I do know that what they do is to approach the brewers and tell them that a summer or xmas promotion is planned, tell them what quantities are required and tell them what price they will be paying for the bulk order - the brewers then make the product to match that price, I'm no expert on brewing but I'm told that it usually involves a batch being brewed for a shorter period of time to cut costs - either way there weren't too many in Tetleys brewery who would buy any of the promotional packs knowing that it was an inferior product.