CRYING IN YOUR BEER???

In the U.S., beer sales are slowing, but still growing, said Benj Steinman, publisher of trade publication Beer Marketer’s Insights. Sales to retailers so far this year are up about half a percent, he said. That’s down from the 1.4% growth rate the beer industry saw last year and 2.1% in 2006. But Steinman notes that the beer industry’s long-term growth rate is about 1% a year.

“The beer industry overall is performing surprisingly well given what’s going on,” Steinman said. “It’s just resilient. It’s not recession-proof but it resisted more than many other industries, seemingly.”

Sales of imported beer, though, are down 3%, Steinman said, a sign people are curbing their purchases of pricier brews. Micro-brewed beers, which command higher prices, though often not as much as imports, are up in the mid single digits this year.

The British Beer and Pub Association, whose members brew 98% of Britain’s beer and include nearly two-thirds of the country’s pubs, said that the problem was being exacerbated by increases in the government’s alcohol tax, which brings in around $180 million a year. The government hiked beer duty 9.1% in this year’s national budget in March.

“This sales trend is symptomatic of the problems infecting the broader economy,” said Hayward. But, he said, government policies “are making a bad situation worse.”

The association warned that the falling sales will leave the Treasury facing a 1.2 billion pound ($1.8 billion) tax shortfall, in real terms, over the next three years, compared with their forecasts.

More than 1,400 pubs closed last year as a nationwide smoking ban and rising costs took their toll on beer sales, according to the Campaign for Real Ale, a consumer group promoting traditional pubs.

To take up the slack, pubs have been stepping up the food side of their business. Beer sales at Mitchells & Butlers, Britain’s second-largest pub group, now account for just a quarter of all its revenue.

Some lawmakers fear the sliding pub sales will have another effect — spurring pub owners to return to promotions that encourage binge drinking, such as selling cheap drinks until a team scores in a soccer match.
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Yet another casualty of the world wide economic turmoil!