Low-alcohol beer not popular

Press, 28 March 1980, Page 1

Low-alcohol beer not popular

; Drinkers in Christj church aren’t very inter?ested in low-alcohol beer • from Australia and they’re even less interested in the ! New Zealand-made version. ■ ■ . - . A survey of city hotels has shown that not .many ' stock low-alcohol (L.A.) beer, and those that do. > find very little demand for "it. , -‘I have one guy . who -drinks it,” said a city bar- ’■ maid. ‘‘When he drinks it he drinks it. He was away for two months recently and the cabinet stayed full. Now he's back it’s empty.” ; Nobody else at the hotel was interested, the barmaid said. * Many other hotels said a that they didn’t have L.A. >?beer and there was no de-. mand for 'it. Those that ♦did have some only had 'the locally made brew. > Wholesalers have. found ;

a similar lack of interest among Christchurch beer, drinkers, although one, Mr Humphrey Meyers of Bishop and Company, said his company was selling more Australian L.A. beer. “I would say that we sell two cans of Australian L.A. beer to one bottle of the New Zealand product.” he said. The New Zealand • L.A. beer was introduced at the end of October and the Australian brew had been available since December, Mr Meyers said. Australian L.A. beer was selling better because of the price, the packaging, and the convenient size. It comes in cans, slightly smaller than the Lion L.A., which comes in bottles, he said. A dozen tins of the Australian threw. costs $8.25 compared with $8.78 for the New Zealand product. < p ■ .

Altogether L.A. beer had taken about 2 per cent of his total beer sales, Mr Meyers said. He also said that the beer tastes slightly different from the standard beer and he felt this also mitigated against it. However, a spokesman for Fletcher Humphrey’s thought that the current interest in Australian L.A. beer was a novelty since the import controls came off in December. “We think it’s a flash in the pan,” he said, and saw very little demand for both Australian and New Zealand L.A. beer. The Alcoholic Liquor Advisory Council, which was set up by the Government to promote drinking in moderation, had hoped that the L.A. beer would become' popular and deter drunkenness and associated social and criminal problems.

The council is trying to persuade the Government to tax liquor on the basis of alcohol content, the more alcohol, the more tax. L.A. beer is the same price a litre jug: $1.14, Nearly 30 per cent of that goes on tax and duty. t The council thought L’.A. beer should be 7c or 8c a litre less expensive because it contained 25 per cent less alcohol than standard beer. Lion Breweries also hoped the taxes would be changed. The public relations officer in Wellington (Mr lan Parata) said that the New Zealand L.A, beer was penalised in two ways.

“We pay twice as much for our cans as the Australians. The Government won’t give us the same access to raw materials,” he said. "And the Australians don’t pay as high a tax as well.”

Mr Parata .thought that the main handicap to better sales of L.A, beer was its price. In Australia, where L.A. beer .takes '7 per cent of the market, less tax was paid but in New Zealand the. tax was the same regardless of alcohol content.

“Patrons probably think why should they pay the same price for beer which his less alcohol,’’ he said. Another factor would be resistance to change but Mr Parata did not think that the different’ taste would be a consideration. “It’s just slightly different',” 1 he said. “Not as sweet'. There’s no sugar in it.” His company had introduced L.A. beer to selected outlets last Decerns ber as a test. The response had been “fairly patchy.” In city bars, where they had expected it to do quite well, there

were few sales, Mr Parata said. But in some small pockets here and there, such as Taranaki, it was doing surprisingly well. Sales of packaged L.A. beer had been up to the target sales of one per cent of the market, he; said. • Mr Parata said his conn pany intended to persevere with L.A. beer. Social considerations had been high on its list of priorities when it was introduced, he said.