A brewer for sale, as he is called in distinction front a private brewer, is required to take out an annual .,e1 licence where the number of barrels brewed during the previous year has not exceeded one hundred. Where such number of barrels has exceeded one hundred, then the annual licence is .€1 for the first hundred and 12s. for every further fifty barrels or fraction of fifty barrels. For the purpose of this scale, barrels may be taken at the option of the brewer either to be bulk barrels or standard barrels, a standard barrel being thirty-six gallons of beer of an original gravity of 1055°. The licence expires on the 30th Sep tember in each year. By brewing without the licence he will incur a penalty of ..E500, and will forfeit all his beer, materials, and utensils. In addition to this annual licence there is an excise duty on beer. The duty is payable imme diately upon its being charged to the brewer, and must be paid before the fifteenth day of the following month ; and should default be made in its pay ment, the Inland Revenue authorities will distrain therefor, and sell any beer, materials, and utensils that may be necessary to provide for its payment. In order to afford the authorities adequate facility to obtain a knowledge of the amount and quality of the brewings, the brewer is required to keep on his premises all the necessary scales and weights, to give every assistance to, and provide every convenience for, the officers of excise to gauge and measure the brewings and to take the accounts. In fact, from the time of commencing his
business, when he has to supply full details of all his premises and plant, and of their positions and purposes, until he ceases brewing altogether, all his appliances and operations must be disclosed to the excise officers. His rooms and utensils are required to be specified, marked, and numbered ; the position of the vessels maintained without alteration, so as to afford facilities for gauging or measuring ; his books must show the hours and dates of the brewings, the quantities of malt, corn, and sugar to be used, and the hour when the worts will be drawn off the grains into the mash tubs ; and the true original gravity before fermentation is also to be duly entered. This is only an outline of the very detailed regulation of the brewer's business, but should he omit compliance in any respect he w( •ild incur very heavy penalties. The officers are continually paying visits to the brewery awaiting the mashings, watching that the brewing book is duly entered up, and checking the quantity of materials used ; so im portant are their dutic that an attempt at their bribery would result in a tine of 1'500. Sre BEER : LICENSING.