A call’s been made locally for an excise reduction in the Budget.
Carlow Brewing Company is among the cider producers calling on the Minister for Finance to reduce excise by fifty percent for craft cider producers in this year’s budget.
Ireland already has the third highest rate of excise on cider in the EU but craft beer has had the excise reduce by half for the last 15 years leading to huge expansion in that sector.
Seamus O’Hara, Founder and CEO of Carlow Brewing Company, has just been re-elected to a second term as chairman of Drinks Ireland – Cider.
He says cider needs to be brought in line with craft beers:
“One of the challenges in the craft cider space is the relatively high excise. So we’ve been basically pitching a reduced excise rate for craft cider producers to bring it in line I guess with where craft beer is at the moment”.
