William Morris-Whyte posted this picture to Facebook showing the damage one of the new Speight’s caps had caused his hand.

Hundreds of social media users have lifted the lid on an issue affecting the Pride of the South.

Speight’s Facebook page has been inundated with comments in recent days about the tightness of caps on stubbies of the beer.

One comment questioning "Why are stubby caps so tight lately?" attracted almost 600 replies — many asking the same question — and almost 2000 likes.

Several social media users have also posted pictures of their hands gnarled, bruised and bleeding due to attempts to get bottles of the beer open.

"Hey Speight’s, Merry Christmas," Alice Kelly posted.

"Just wondering if the guy who puts the lids on could ease up a little in the new year, not sure if it’s just us but we seem to be struggling to open them as quick as we used to."

"Hey Alice, sorry to hear you are having trouble with our bottle caps," Speight’s responded.

Speight’s stubby bottle cap.

"We recently had a small change to our bottle caps which made them a bit tighter, but we are sorting this out so they will be back to normal soon enough. Cheers for getting in touch mate!"

Other commenters were able to look past the struggle and see the funny side of the issue.

"If you’re a real southern man you shouldn’t have a problem," one Dunedin social media user said.

A spokeswoman for Lion — the brewery behind the beer — said the company was working on fixing the issue.

"I do know that we are very much aware of the issue and that we are working on it but I don’t have the timeframe detail as yet," she said.

timothy.brown@odt.co.nz