Homebrew Distillers licence-Has anyone successfully applied?

[oldbloke]

Ah, but that's the New Zealand Customs Act, not the UK one! Doesn't do us any good!

Oh, that was your point.
I appear to be drunk.
Again...

[Pinto]

Indeed

Hence personally, I'll continue with my Turbo yeast, biiiig bag of sugar and a column full of Granucol - just make it a quadruple.... the effect is the same

[FUBAR]

I think New Zealand have the most sensible laws in the world regarding home brewing.

Customs Act 1996
Excise Regulation 9
"Any person who produces beer, wine or spirits for his or her own consumption is exempt from excise tax"

Does it need to be any more complex than that ?? Its just HMRC are a bunch of money grabbing B*#@ards....

Exactly and that is the only reason it's illegal, nonsense though as in New Zealand the sales of commercially distilled spirits has increased since legalisation so a loss of revenue isn't a problem.

[asd]

Need to sort out U.K. posters and New Zealand ones .... Gets confusing.

[Binkie Huckaback]

Its just HMRC are a bunch of money grabbing B*#@ards....

I know this is a very old post, but that's simply not true. That's like blaming the police for ticketing you because you were speeding or traffic wardens because you were parked illegay. HMRC Collects taxes and revenues government tells it to.

If you have a problem, you should lobby parliament. And while you're at it, ask them to collect all the tax owed by rich people and companies who avoid paying the tax they should be paying, but because they donate to political parties or because the money they spend on clever accountants outweighs what they SHOULD pay, means they don't.

[f00b4r]

Actually we are fairly lucky regarding home alcohol production in the U.K.- I think you have to get a licence, or register, to make more than about 200 litres of beer per annum in Germany of all places!

Why, in the name of (choose your deity) would you be arsed to homebrew in Germany? My lads were in Berlin earlier this year and Lidl's Perlenbacher was around 2yo-yos per 6-pack. Superior brews available at pro rata prices but unless you want to make some vanker-sthyle pissen, while grooming your moustache and soiling your lederhosen and feeling superior to your fellow man you'd be far better off devoting your time to drinking tax-paid, excise compliant great beer at great prices.

shazza, most people here in the uk do not homebrew just to save money (although of course you can, in the long run), it can be quite expensive in equipment and especially time at the end of the day. I do it as it interests me and it's fun to do mainly . We have over 1200 breweries here now, almost as many as Germany in a much smaller area but I'll still homebrew.

Germany has many great beers but they are great german beers, and a lot of people like great british beers, or great belgian beers or great american beers, so if some german student or hobbiest decides they want a good bitter or scottish IPA or doubel or a coffee infused bacon double banana 'murica [censored] yeah beer then all the power to them. Outside of Berlin it's pretty hard to get foreign beers, so I can understand people wanting to homebrew.

Zombie thread revival!
I am a Brit living in Berlin so can give you a view on homebrewing here.
There is quite an active Home Brew scene here, if you peruse the main German forum you will see quite a lot of interesting beers being brewed, including clones of German ones. I don't think most non-Germans realise how regionalised this country, is in that a huge number of the breweries in Germany, including some of the best ones from e.g. Franconia/Bavaria, never sell beer more than 20km from the brewery. Also, although I can buy a 20 x 500ml crate of e.g. Pilsner Urquell this week from my supermarket for less than £9 (less than 45p a bottle!), a lot of "craft" breweries are charging 10x that for a pale ale in a bottle/can. There are also some decent German made "British" beers, although some just taste like lagers that have had caramel poured into them (not pleasant), but expect to pay "craft" prices for these and expect those ABV's to be 2-3% higher than in the UK (I am not sure if this is because higher alcohol beers tend to smooth out deficiencies or if it is an American led thing but that brown ale might be coming in at 6.5-7% ABV).
Also Marstons etc have cottoned onto things here, you can buy things like Trooper etc BUT they come in 330ml bottles and are branded English craft and priced accordingly.

In terms of the licensing, I have one and yes you are "limited" to 200L per household before you are liable for tax on the extra brews (no getting one for the spouse/partner to double your limit).
However, it took me 5 minutes to send off the form by email (there is a German brewing forum that has a template that you just copy and paste and change name and address in) so it really is not a pain. There are also advantages to it, it means that you can have homebrew events where you can sell the beer to the public and get them engaged or raise money without having to worry about treading some grey legal line or outright breaking the law.
You do however have to pay tax on your beer and provide details if entering a homebrew competition. It is a very simple form that you send off and there is quite a leeway in declaration (10 euros IIRC), something that some German homebrewers seem to take delight in, e.g. declaring 1 cent tax on a batch that should have been 10 euros.
Oh and last but not least the tax is insanely low anyway, it is based on OG but it is about a euro for 20L.

[WillH10]

Hello!

"There are also advantages to it, it means that you can have homebrew events where you can sell the beer to the public and get them engaged or raise money without having to worry about treading some grey legal line or outright breaking the law."
That sounds really good!

How long do you live in Germany? I'm dreaming to move somewhere (Germany, maybe) and i'm planning to visit a few countries before i decide where to move.

P.S. Is anyone use Philips kegerators? I was offered a good price for one of the Philip's kegerators (if i'm not mistaken, these one https://www.bestadvisers.co.uk/kegerator (first one)) On amazon it costs ~400£ (new), i can get one for ~250£ - 300£ What do tyou think?

[Cobnut]

A member of my local HB club has a Grainfather alembic still and has been in contact with HMRC regarding home distillation. He gleefully told us that he'd had a letter from them essentially telling him that they are not interested in his tiny level of spirit production. He has laminated the letter and stuck it on the wall.

Oh, and his whisky was very nice.

[f00b4r]

Hello!

"There are also advantages to it, it means that you can have homebrew events where you can sell the beer to the public and get them engaged or raise money without having to worry about treading some grey legal line or outright breaking the law."
That sounds really good!

How long do you live in Germany? I'm dreaming to move somewhere (Germany, maybe) and i'm planning to visit a few countries before i decide where to move.

P.S. Is anyone use Philips kegerators? I was offered a good price for one of the Philip's kegerators (if i'm not mistaken, these one https://www.bestadvisers.co.uk/kegerator (first one)) On amazon it costs ~400£ (new), i can get one for ~250£ - 300£ What do tyou think?

I have been here a few years now but unless you have a German partner or speak German to a decent degree you would struggle to move here as most of the red tape you need to deal with is only conducted in German (and there is lots!) and usually requires you to bring a translator at your own cost if you need it. It has a lot of upsides but like most places they do some things better than the UK and some things are worse or just crazily expensive, e.g. buy a house or piece of land and you will get hit for 15% taxes/fees on top of the sale price before you even start talking about the various other fees that you will get hit with, none of which you can add to a mortgage. If you have the opportunity to spend some time in different places though I would do it.

In terms of that Philips machine, it is not a kegerator but essentially uses beer "capsules" a la nespresso style coffee makers. There are some of those types of machines that can be refilled with homebrew but it is worth doing a search and a bit of research, but it depends what you want it for really.

[WillH10]

Thank you for the information! It seems that i really need to find some source where i can read more about moving to abroad.

"If you have the opportunity to spend some time in different places though I would do it."
I have the the opportunity to do that, but it seems that it will be a year or a few years later (all because of covid, of caurse).

"In terms of that Philips machine..."

I thought use it for a homebrew. I'll read more about it and if i like it i'll write some small review somewhere on the forum.

[mattmcquillan]

[quote=Cobnut post_id=852630 time=1599466800 user_id=19174]
A member of my local HB club has a Grainfather alembic still and has been in contact with HMRC regarding home distillation. He gleefully told us that he'd had a letter from them essentially telling him that they are not interested in his tiny level of spirit production. He has laminated the letter and stuck it on the wall.

Oh, and his whisky was very nice.
[/quote]

Interesting! Don't suppose you can source us a photo of the letter (names and addresses redacted obviously)? I would be interested in trying to get a similar response, haha.

Thanks in advance!

[FUBAR]

A member of my local HB club has a Grainfather alembic still and has been in contact with HMRC regarding home distillation. He gleefully told us that he'd had a letter from them essentially telling him that they are not interested in his tiny level of spirit production. He has laminated the letter and stuck it on the wall.

Oh, and his whisky was very nice.

Interesting! Don't suppose you can source us a photo of the letter (names and addresses redacted obviously)? I would be interested in trying to get a similar response, haha.

Thanks in advance!

Probably is the case that they are not interested / got the time to worry about someone producing a few litres to drink themselves , does seem hard to believe that they would put it in writing though ? .

[Binkie Huckaback]

A member of my local HB club has a Grainfather alembic still and has been in contact with HMRC regarding home distillation. He gleefully told us that he'd had a letter from them essentially telling him that they are not interested in his tiny level of spirit production. He has laminated the letter and stuck it on the wall.

Oh, and his whisky was very nice.

Hmm. I'm afraid that 'if there's no photo, it didn't happen'. Though I'm not implying that Cobnut had done anything other than take something someone said in very good faith.

[Cobnut]

Hmm. I'm afraid that 'if there's no photo, it didn't happen'. Though I'm not implying that Cobnut had done anything other than take something someone said in very good faith.

https://media.giphy.com/media/M31G94ayUWQpO/giphy.gif

[McMullan]

What, mattmcquillan, internal affairs?