Family brewery facing axe as EU says: Your nettle beer's not a beer



Centuries old recipe: Each bottle contains eight nettles as well as flowers

Britain's only specialist nettle beer brewery may be forced to close because of EU rules which state the ancient bitter is not actually an ale.



The ruling means the Cornish family who brew the traditional beer using a centuries-old recipe face a bill of almost £10,000 in backdated duty, because the drink now falls into a higher tax band.



The couple have also had their entire stock of 2,280 bottles impounded by Customs officials.



The brew, named Cornish Stingers, is served on tap or in 500ml beer bottles, produces a white frothy head when poured and has a 4.5 per cent alcoholic content, similar to most ales. But Brussels bureaucrats say it does not qualify as a beer for tax purposes because it does not contain malt.



Nor do they class Cornish Stingers a ‘grape-wine’, spirit or cider – but instead categorise it as ‘made-wine’ alongside alcopops such as WKD and Smirnoff Ice.



Brewer Miles Lavers and partner Alice Rollinson, who have three young children, now say their business may be force to close because of the tax bill. Even if they survive, the ruling will put an extra 10p in duty on each £2.50 bottle.



The couple’s MP, George Eustice, labelled the ruling as ‘mad’ and said he had written to Chancellor George Osborne asking him to overturn the decision. ‘Only the EU could claim that nettle beer is not a beer,’ the Tory MP said.



‘This is a centuries-old recipe. We should be encouraging new enterprising businesses, not impounding their stock on the basis of mad EU rulings.’



Yesterday Mr Lavers, 44, said: ‘It’s really frustrating HM Revenue and Customs have been aware of what we’ve been doing right from the start.



Stung for more tax: Barmaid Lisa Lea pours a glass of Cornish Stingers at the Trengilly Wartha Inn

You can taste the eight nettles in every bottle It was a tough job, but someone had to do it: Put Cornish Stingers to the taste test, writes Nick Constable.

Having obtained a contraband bottle – brewer Miles Lavers is prevented by Customs from selling it – I was poured a glass by Lisa Lea, 37, of the Trengilly Wartha Inn in Constantine, Cornwall.

Time was when Customs men spent their time nabbing brandy smugglers around here, but that was long before EU tax directives.

The first thing you notice about Stingers is its clarity. This is no dark, gut-rumbling concoction beloved of dodgy backroom beer festivals. Instead there is a light green hue and a gentle sparkle.

The taste is ‘lemony’, Mr Lavers says, with a ‘touch of wildflower meadow’. ‘You can taste the nettles. It’s eight nettles to the bottle and we put the flowers in as well.’

Never having munched nettles

I can’t vouch for this. But it went down a treat, a kind of cross between lager and cider.

True, you couldn’t really describe it as a traditional British ale, although Mr Lavers could get it classified as such by adding malt.

But, he says: ‘It’ll turn the beer brown, and people, especially women, love that it’s clear and fresh.

‘Plus blokes like it as a lovely sessions beer.’ Sessions beer? ‘You can drink lots and not feel too bad afterwards.’

‘They are using bully-boy tactics to earn more money from small independent brewers like myself. Stinging nettle beer is a traditional British brew and we should stick to our own guidelines and not have Europe poking their noses in.’



Cornish Stingers gets its alcohol content from sugar that is added to the mix of nettles and yeast and allowed to ferment, rather than the malted barley used in traditional beer.



Nettles were used to flavour ale before hops widely became used in the 1600s. But because nettle beer had long fallen out of fashion, it was not considered when the EU introduced its 1992 rules on taxing alcoholic drinks.



Recently nettle beer has made something of a comeback. Celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall produced the similarly named Stinger ale, flavoured using nettles from his farm in Dorset. However, he also uses malt in his recipe so benefits from a more favourable tax rate.



Mr Lavers runs the brewery business Foodswild with Miss Rollinson, 33, from the farmhouse they share with their three children near Helston, Cornwall.



They have been brewing Cornish Stingers for two years. However, three months ago a tax official examined the contents of the beer and ruled the lack of malt meant it needed to be reclassified, landing them with a £9,260 bill for back taxes.



Mr Lavers has already appealed the decision which he says leaves his business and his family in an ‘extremely worrying situation’.



Last night an HMRC spokesman defended their decision.



‘The rules concerning the taxation of alcoholic drinks are set out in European legislation,’ he stated. ‘To qualify as a beer, and be taxed as a beer, a product must be made from malt.



‘Alcoholic products that cannot be defined as either beer, wines of fresh grape, spirits, cider or perry are charged with the duty rate for “made wine”.



‘If a brewer is unhappy with our decision, they can lodge an appeal.’

