Could we be heading back to the days of prohibition? Let’s hope not, let’s hope the beer rationing stays far away from us.
Oh yes, it’s true. Beer rationing is actually going on. It’s happening in the UK right now and fingers crossed it will stay there.
It’s all come about thanks to a shortage of Carbon Dioxide. An essential component in the beer making process, the shortage of the supply has caused a shortage of beer production and has since led to beer rationing.
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One beer manufacturer in particular in the UK has had to limit customers, bars, and grocers, to the amount of beer they can purchase per day. Bars and grocers can only purchase up to 10 crates of beer, the equivalent of 300 cans of beer, per day.
That might not seem like a lot to both you and me, and therefore the beer rationing is nothing to worry about, but in truth, it is far from enough beer when it comes to being a retailer. 300 cans of beer can easily disappear fairly fast, especially in a bar.
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
In the UK, the average person drinks nearly 500 pints of beer per year. Now let’s just assume each can is the size of a pint, which means a grocer or a bar is only allowed in a day, just over half of what one person drinks in a year.
So you can easily imagine how quickly the beer is going to run out. There is the obvious argument that this is actually a good thing as it will improve people’s health by having them drink less, but that is certainly not going to help anyone from an economic view.
So is beer rationing likely to come over here?
Fingers crossed it won’t, and it really shouldn’t.
The reason the UK has a shortage of Carbon Dioxide is due to ammonia plants, which produce the Carbon Dioxide, have closed for maintenance across Europe, one of them being in the UK. The US doesn’t really on those them as ammonia plants are scattered throughout North America.
So while the UK is suffering a beer rationing crisis right now, it should be staying quite far away from us. Or it had better do anyway, I for one don’t fancy going back to the prohibition days.
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What do you make of the beer rationing going on the UK? Do you think it will stay over there or do you think some beers will be affected here? Drop a comment below sharing what you think.