When the Government cuts the excise rate on petrol and diesel, generally speaking, the difference is seen in the price paid by the motorist.
But walk up to a bar in Ireland and order an excise-free, non-alcoholic beer and you’ll pay close to the same as you would for the full-strength equivalent.
This has been a bugbear for consumers for years.
Three years ago, in a written Dáil answer, the then minister for finance, Michael McGrath, said pricing of these drinks was a matter for retailers and publicans.
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“This should reflect the fact that no excise applies to such products as well as other factors,” he said.
A pint of standard beer comes with a 54 cent excise rate attached – its zero-alcohol partner does not.
Former Green Party TD, and its justice spokesman, Patrick Costello tabled the question that prompted the minister’s answer in 2023.
“The health impacts of alcohol are well known – and we need to be supporting people to drink less alcohol and be healthier,” he says.
“The challenge with non-alcoholic beers is that there’s not much transparency here. A lot of this is very opaque and the private business of manufacturers.”
Costello is referring to the industry’s claim that there is an additional expense to removing alcohol from their products that has to be reflected in the price over the counter.
He also cites a lack of clarity around the relationship between the suppliers of the drinks and publicans. “Businesses don’t want to share those numbers with us,” he says.
A pint of Guinness in the Palace costs €7.50 while the zero equivalent is €7.20. “Guinness increased the zero cost more than the standard pint in its last price increase. By all accounts it’s expensive to produce, to brew the beer and then extract the alcohol,” says Willie Ahearne, owner of the Palace Bar in Fleet Street in Dublin’s city centre.
Cormac Healy is director of Drinks Ireland, a representative body for drinks producers here.
He says manufacturers have invested heavily in research over recent years – and that this is also reflected in the pricing.
“Apart from the fact that a huge amount of money has been spent developing these drinks – the actual production processes involved mean you are going a step further and there are additional costs in brewing them,” he says.
Another element that adds to the cost of these drinks is VAT.
Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks are liable for the same 23 per cent rate. Those advocating for so-called zero-zeros to be made cheaper have also suggested that a reduced VAT rate be applied – and this would in turn reduce the price to the consumer.
Healy says Drinks Ireland is not calling specifically for such a move but would be supportive of any measures that would enhance their appeal.
“Overall, the category is new and growing – and any new overall policy framework that supports it we would welcome it,” he says. “Ultimately, it is a matter for the Minister for Finance but we think this is a positive category.”
According to recent figures from the European statistics agency Eurostat, the production of beer with less than 0.5 per cent alcohol increased by more than 11 per cent in 2024 – amounting to two billion litres of beer. So there certainly has been an uptick in its prevalence.
But contrast this with the amount of traditional beer on offer – 32.7 billion litres.
As of the end of 2024, the European market for zero-zeroes was 6 per cent of the overall beer market.
A cursory look at the figures shows that although they are certainly growing in popularity, Irish consumption of the zero-zeros still lags that seen in Europe.
Across the Continent, billboards, sporting events and television advertising are awash with zero-alcohol beer branding. But critics say this level of advertising is out of kilter with the reality of beer production.
There is a disparity between the money spent on advertising these products and their actual consumption, they claim.
In 2022 zero-alcohol drink ads made up 25 per cent of outdoor advertising in the retail and alcohol category, according to analysis by the marketing and communications company Core.
At the same time, the actual market for zero-alcohol drinks in Ireland was as low as 2 per cent.
Alcohol Action Ireland campaigns to reduce harm caused by alcohol. It says that although Irish people are drinking significantly less than 20 years ago, binge drinking is still a considerable problem here.
It claims big manufacturers such as Diageo and Heineken have discovered they can display their brand-names and logos in Irish settings that were previously prohibited so long as it is to advertise zero-alcohol beers.
It refers to this as “brand-sharing”.
The advocacy group notes that a large amount of money was used to back these products at a time when the Public Health (Alcohol) Act was coming into force.
The Act prohibits the targeting of children with alcohol advertising either directly or indirectly.
“I don’t buy that for a number of reasons,” says Healy of Drinks Ireland.
“That point is made here in Ireland around a particular piece of legislation that we have but we are seeing growth in demand for this category of drinks globally.”
The latest figures in Ireland – published last September – trumpeted a 25 per cent increase in sales of zero-alcohol beer. This brought the overall share of the beer market to 2.5 per cent.
The industry says that whereas consumption of non-alcoholic drinks rose, the amount of alcoholic beverages consumed per capita in Ireland fell by 3 per cent. Its representatives claim this new category is playing its part in reducing harmful drinking.
Healy says the drinks companies are responding to growing demand from people who wish to moderate the amount of alcohol they consume and this is not an attempt to circumvent public health measures.
“The investment that has gone into the innovation of this category and the huge investment in terms of growing production capacity, all of that is because of consumer demand and nothing else,” he says.
The Government is aware the industry may be concerned the advertising ban could still be extended.
In advance of a meeting of senior Diageo Ireland executives and the Taoiseach in Government Buildings 12 months ago, a briefing note was prepared for Micheál Martin. It said the company might raise concerns that provisions of the Public Health Act dealing with advertising and sponsorship might be applied to the likes of Guinness 0.0.
The documentation released under the Freedom of Information Act did not reveal whether this was indeed mentioned.
But you can be sure the brewers will put a lot money behind trying to persuade the Government not to change policy.
