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joecast

Eat, drink...and drink some more.
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so with all the talk about the fta and how agriculture was or wasnt part of the deal (depending on which political party you listen to), i was wondering if that would mean anything to homebrewers? would the price/availability of maltings from the us be affected?
joe
 
Not sure mate, I've sent an email to the Dept. of Foreign Affairs and Trade asking about the impact on imported malt and yeast. I'll let you know the reply.

FYI there is a FTA Hotline: 1300 558 413. They should be able to answer your question assuming you can aford to be on hold for half the day.
 
thanks wax,
guess we'll wait a while and see what turns up on the shelves of the lhbs. we can only hope...
joe
 
I hope I'm wrong, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a reply. The govt. hasn't actually released the FTA publicly yet, so we are only going on what they are telling us is in it. The Australian version of the agreement coming from our govt is not stacking up with the US version on a series of points including pharmaceuticals and TV/Film industry rights, so who knows what they are going to tell us at this stage regarding malt... When the document is available, then we'll be able to see for ourselves. Please keep the forum informed Wax, I'm really keen to see what response you get.

Shawn.
 
Folks, Dont hold your breath on cheaper malt imports from the US - there is no duty on malt from ANY source and we currently do not source any malt products from the US. Yeasts and hops could be affected though.

Wes.
 
You going to import any Belgian malts, Wes?

E.g. Aromatic, Biscuit, Belg pils, Munich, choc etc

I think DeWolf-Cosyns is no more? But thereare still maltsters there

Jovial Monk
 
Sorry JM, There is little likelyhood of any Belgian imports from us in the future. There is absolutley no demand from the micro industry for (expensive) Belgian malts and unless we can fill a container (17 tonnes) the exercise is not viable. We do stock the Hoepfner and Weyermann equivalents to Aromatic (Melanoidin), Biscuit (Caraamber) and Caraaroma (Special B). Standard Belgian pilsner, Ale, Munich etc are no different from other Euro malts and frankly no better than our JW malts in many instances.

There is also a capacity issue with specialty malts in Europe and Dingemanns, the main remaining Belgian maltster could not guarantee continuity of supply to us anyway. Shame, but commercial reality has to enter the equation. Oh, BTW, we did import a couple of bags of Belgian ale malt when we were developing our Traditional Ale Malt - in fact the Belgian malt was the prime benchmark. We reckon we achieved an equally brewable product.

Wes.
 
I don't know about Malt in particular, but Australia had barely anything to offer in the USFTA anyway. (in terms of lowering our protection) We already have low tariffs and no basically no quotas. Aus Sugar would have accounted for ~20% of the benefit of the FTA to Australia. Basically, we are getting ripped off.

Change of prices for homebrewers? Not likely. Only market trends will see to that, not a FTA.

Should Howard have signed? Absolutely not. He should have walked away. That is one of the dumbest things I have seen... but he walked right into it.

Maybe this payoff for joining a coalition of the willing wasn't worth it?

I think Australia got more out of the very recent Thai FTA, although everyone seems to have missed that one. Oh well, screwed by the US again.

If Australia got sugar on the FTA table, perhaps more Aussie brewers would be forced to use malt instead of sucrose.. now that would have been an advantage for Australia!

BJ
 
I just got an email back from the dept. of foreign affairs and trade. They have have confirmed that under the US FTA current tariffs on imported US yeast and malt will be lifted. They did not, however, tell me what the current tariffs stand at.

At any rate I doubt it will have much impact on the end consumer. It might help out the local HBS though.
 
Thanks for that Wax. I'm amazed you actually got a reply! Top Darts to the boys at DFAT.

Shawn.
 

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