Monkey pig hits back at new beer tax

A local craft brewery have urged Aussie beer drinkers to learn about the inflated tax they are being forced to pay.

Reg and Kat Taylor from Monkey Pig Brewery

YEPPOON craft brewers Reg and Kat Taylor have joined a chorus of frustration echoing from independent breweries around the Central Queensland region.

The uproar comes after the beer industry was yesterday dealt another tax increase at the hands of the Federal Government.

Unfortunately for the Monkey Pig Brewers owners, the unreasonable inflation is something they are all too familiar with.

With costs scheduled to increase every six months, many local brewers like the couple will be forced to raise the cost of their own product in a bid to meet rising overhead costs.

For Mr and Mrs Taylor, the costs have caused a ripple effect throughout their business, with plans to further their product offering now being called into question.

"One of our big things at the moment is we are looking to put our beer into cans, but the excise is enormous.

"It's making us delay and question the whole process," Mrs Taylor said.

The couple slammed the tax increases as absurd and misleading.

Customers are grossly unaware of how much beer tax they pay, Mr Taylor claimed, admitting that the Federal Government has done little to provide consumers the information they deserve.

"If you go to a bottle shop and buy a craft beer between $6 and $11, well out of that $6 bottle, the bottle shop will make $1-2 and the manufacture about $4.

"But over a quarter of our profit is actually going to tax."

Since their opening in 2017, Mr Taylor said their company had experienced a continuous uprise in tax - and that there were serious concerns as to whether the business would eventually become too costly to sustain.

"When you add up all the additional freight costs, pallet costs and more that we experience as a regional brewery, it all becomes really expensive."

Unfortunately, there looks to be little reprieve in sight for the beloved local brewery as another tax hike hits in six months time.

Mrs Taylor said she hoped customers realised that Monkey Pig's increasing costs were not out of greed, but out of necessity to keep the business afloat.

"By the time we have to add all the extra tax and GST - we actually get very little of that in return," Mrs Taylor said.

Mr Taylor was disappointed that frequent tax increases were ultimately going to hit the end consumer hardest.

After the increase takes place, Australian beer lovers will now be forced to pay $2.26 per litre of alcohol.

"Every added cost does impact our business and unfortunately it's out of our hands. They slug us every charge, every cost they can think of," he said.

"Sadly, there's not a whole lot we can do."