So all that effort to agree with me it wouldn't make much difference?
Well done.
Wrong.
I said it won't make any difference at all. Not the same as your '
beer could be cheaper' or even your "
Not that I think 3.2% on one ingredient will make a big difference".
It doesn't make
any difference to the cost of a pint to the consumer whether hops has an import tariff of 3.2% or if it doesn't have an import tariff at all.
Perhaps you should of looked at the cost of the import first before knee jerkingly (EU bad) going on about a 3.2% import tariff on the hops from USA and Australia and how much of it is actually used in the consumer end product; a pint of beer.
"You are aware we import most of the hops used in beer production including from the USA and Australia? Which attract a 3.2% tariff."
and
"To repeat again, we import most of our hops and non EU imports attract a 3.2% tariff. So beer could be cheaper when we leave."
Hops are only a flavouring, not a major ingredient of beer.
If the amount imported was $10 billion dollars worth knocking 3.2% import tariff off might reduce prices. But not when the amount imported was USD$65 million worth (2016) and the import tariff thus only adds less than USD 2 million to the costs of making the product even if all of the hop imports were subject to tariffs (which they are not). Imports of hops actually fell in 2018 compared to the 2016 figure mentioned and were lower at around £33 million for that year.
A Home brew forum sees people mentioning using 50-100g of hops per 5 gallons (22.7 litres) of beer. So at a max amount of less than 5g per litre or 2.5g of hops per pint.
At the mentioned price of USD $10.37K per metric tonne and 1 million grams per metric tonne that means each gram of hops costs $0.01037 or 1 cent US (£0.008) commercially in bulk. Even buying for home brewing in 100g packets the cost of hops is between just £0.025 to £0.06 per gram depending on variety (and that includes VAT at 20% too).
Assuming that commercial brewing uses the same quantity of hops per pint as home brew:
- that means the hops cost per pint is around £0.02. £0.02 - 3.2% is £0.01936 with no import tariff or the tariff adds in the region of £0.00064 per pint.
- Even upping the hops quantity to say 25g of hops per pint (>10 times the mentioned amount) hops cost would be £0.20p cost per pint. £0.20p - 3.2% = £0.1936 with no import tariff or the tariff adds in the region of £0.0064 per pint.
- The lowest cost that can change to the consumer is 1p and neither of these tariff figures are anywhere near 1p. I'm aware that deducting 3.2% is not the same as adding 3.2% but as the figure either way is so small it's pointless to be totally accurate as it doesn't make any difference to the end result.
- Only if the amount of hops rises to say 250g per pint (100 times normal amount) could there be a saving with the hops ingredient then costing £2 and the import tariff for the hops then being around 6-7p per pint. But beer with that quantity of hops per pint would be undrinkable.
TLDR: 3.2% import duty for hops makes no difference at all to the price the consumer pays per pint for beer. It cannot do so as the quantities of hops used per pint are very small and the cost of the ingredient is low.