Sale Of Bottled Beer Down Since Price Rise

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28642, 19 July 1958, Page 11

Sale Of Bottled Beer Down Since Price Rise

gales of bottled beer have dumped in the Christchurch disSict since the new price of 2s lOd in hotels has operated. Sales are Swn to between one-fifth and one-quarter of sales normally made at this time of the year. Before the price rise became effective, all merchants and hotelkeepers received severely reduced deliveries of bottled beer from the breweries. They have stocked up fully since but the trade has not recovered. Buyer resistance is strong to the high price. From Friday morning till Monday evening, one hotel outside the city sold only one dozen bottles for off-premises conjumption. Domestic purchasers, such as sporting organisations and individuals. of bulk beer are likely to face an even greater increase than 4s a gallon imposed by the Budget when only one brewery is producing in Canterbury in October. Publicans have been informed that the smallest quantity which will then be sold by the brewery will be 18 gallons. A brewer s licence may operate B 5 a wholesale licence in respect of beer manufactured at the brewery. A licence for the manufacture of" beer entitles the brewer to sell, in quantities of not less than two gallons, beer ale or porter made at the brewery. In this way, beer may be sold wholesale. In fact, beer has not been sold wholesale at Christchurch breweries. It has been sold semiwholesale. The price charged gallon has been between that of beer sold to hotels and of beer gold by hotels in containers. The breweries, the publicans have long contended, have been conducting a retail trade — a “pot

und jug” trade. The decision to abandon sales at the brewery of kegs of beer or to fill jars and other containers at prices at least Is a gallon below those ruling in hotel bars and bottle stores was communicated to the trade after the merger of brewery and hotelownership interests, and their division, by two companies brewing in Canterbury.

Small Sales Figures taken out 13 years ago for the Dominion showed that the large breweries supplied nearly all their products to hotels and that the small breweries carried on what was in effect a large retail trade direct with the public. In 1944-45, 3,186,178 gallons of beer were brewed in Christchurch and the quantity sold to individuals and agencies was 257.764 gallons. or 8 per cent, of the production.

Many organisations which have bought beer in kegs, ranging from “ten’s” down to “two’s” will find their catering costs rising substantially after September. They will be paying hotel rates of 12s 6d a gallon, unless they own their own kegs. The practice has been for breweries to lend kegs and to make a charge if the purchasers of the beer fail to return them. No new kegs of any sizes have been made for years. Most beer is now delivered by bulk waggons to temperature and gas-controlled tanks in hotels.