Craft breweries call for help amid closures

Black Ops Brewing on the Gold Coast was less than 24 hours away from liquidation. Now industry veteran Nick Boots is trying to build it back up. But times are tough. Everything involved in the business is going up exponentially, from from 10 to 20 to 30% in some cases. The pressure is on, even for one of Australia's largest craft Brewers. Our costs have just risen almost out of control. Our electricity bills gone from around four and a half, $1000 a month to almost $12,000 a month. Over the last two years, If you're wondering why a pint is so expensive these days, here's why. Since before the pandemic, prices for materials and production costs used to make beer have all spiked. High inflation means the alcohol tax has also gone up. Indexed twice a year, beer excises have gone up by almost 8% in the last 12 months. 44% of the cost of your beer is is is paid in excise tax, which is the third highest for beer production in the world. Got to say, it does feel like at the moment that the federal government uses the industry as a as an absolute cash cow, it's forcing many of the industries close to 700 Brewers to the wall. I would suggest I would probably lost 5% in the last year, but there's nothing stopping another 20% of that 700 going by the wayside if there's not some significant change. Brewers are calling on the government to change taxes, which could help them lower rising costs and the price of beer. Really, the federal government are the ones right now and in the future that can help. But the government isn't budging, saying this is the usual legislated automatic indexation change. We listen respectfully to ideas, but these have to be weighed up against other priorities and within the budgetary constraints for a government with two craft beers named after prime ministers. Local Brewers had hoped for more.