UK: Molson Coors denies misleading customers over the strength of its Carling beer

Molson Coors has hit back at claims it has misled customers over the strength of its flagship lager brand, Carling, The Morning Advertiser reported on August 30.

The brewing giant issued a statement calling out recent media reports that Carling had been reduced from 4% ABV to 3.7% in 2012 to save on duty as “inaccurate”.

Last week, The Morning Advertiser's sister title The Grocer reported that Molson Coors had won an appeal against an HMRC claim that it owed more than £50 mln in unpaid duty in February and March of this year.

The company won the appeal by arguing it did not need to pay the tax due to a reformulation switch to manufacture Carling at a lower ABV of 3.7%, according to the publication.

However, the beer continued to be advertised at an ABV of 4% to prevent customers “demanding a slice” according to the tribunal document.

A Molson Coors spokesperson said mass media coverage of the appeal “oversimplified what is a complex and technical topic” and contained “factual inaccuracies”. However, the brewer would not specify what those inaccuracies were.

“A specialist tribunal took place to provide definitive legal opinion on the correct interpretation of complex and technical UK and EU legislation,” the spokeperson continued. “The tribunal found in favour of Molson Coors on every legal point that was in dispute. In June, HMRC elected not to appeal.

“Brewing is a natural process and as such there is the potential for small variances in actual ABV, on a brew-by-brew basis. The law recognises this, as it does for many consumables, by permitting all brewers a small and tightly defined tolerance range. It is common for consumable products to be allowed a slight variation. For example, the allowed ABV variation for wine is 1%.

“Individual brews of Carling may vary fractionally in alcohol content. We abide by all legal requirements in the brewing and labelling of Carling. Recent media reports that Carling has been brewed at 3.7% ABV since 2012 are inaccurate.”

Legislation in the UK dictates that beer can have a +/- 0.5% ABV labelling tolerance.

Molson Coors installed new equipment between March and April 2013 at its breweries to allow it to blend its beer more accurately, while new meters were also brought in to check ABV levels,
The Grocer reported.

The brewing company confirmed to The Morning Advertiser that any variations in ABV would have affected both the kegged and canned variants of Carling.

31 August, 2017