OVERPROOF HOP BEER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21022, 10 May 1930, Page 14

OVERPROOF HOP BEER.

A BREWER’S EXPERIMENT. LIQUOR WITH A "KICK,'* (Special to Daily Tikes.) AUCKLAND, May 9. The story of a brewer who experimented with hop beer in the absence of the manager of a cordial manufacturing firm, was told in the Magistrate’s Court this morning, when Charles John M'Colloch was charged with keeping liquor for sale in the no-license district of Grey Lynn. A plea of guilty was entered, and the defendant was fined £lO and costs. Sub-inspector Shanahan explained that the' firm concerned carried on a hop beer brewing business at Grey Lynn, and the police had received complaints that people were getting intoxicated on its manufactures. Consequently, the sergeant purchased three bottles of beer and submitted it to the Government analyist. It was found that it contained 7 per cent, of proof spirit or 2 per cent. less proof spirit than ordinary beer. Mr F. K. Hunt, S.M.: At any rate it had what you call a “kick.” The sub-inspector added that a further sample of the beer contained 7.1 per cent, of proof spirit, whereas the regulations permitted only 3 per cent. On behalf of the defendant, Mr Towle said that although the charge was equivalent to sly-grog selling, it was nothing of the sort. The firm had been in business for 20 years, and had never previously had a complaint. Until the case for the prosecution had been stated he had not heard the suggestion that anyone had become intoxicated on the beer. In explaining how the extra spirit came to get into the brew, counsel said that early this year the manager of the firm went away, and a new brewer tried experiments on his own account with the beer by adding more sugar to it. He increased the proof spirit content immediately. Complaint was made and sales of the brew were stopped. Strict check was now being kept on all the beer manufactured. The magistrate suggested that temperance people who drank the offending brew would have got a shock. The sub-inspector said the woman who made the complaint had drunk some of the firm’s beer and came to the conclusion that it had too much "kick.”