Spain to favour beer, wine over spirits
in a bid to reduce consumption levels will take account of the fact
that beer and wine both have a lower strength than spirits,
according to the country's food minister.
New regulations designed to prevent excessive alcohol consumption being drawn up by the Spanish authorities will distinguish between strong alcoholic beverages such as spirits and those with a lower alcohol content such as beer, wine or cider.
Miguel Arias Canete, Spain's food minister, said that there would be different rules for "fermented alcoholic drinks with an alcohol content below 20 degrees" than for distilled spirits, reports Europa Press.
The law is designed to limit the consumption of strong alcoholic beverages by restricting the advertising and sponsorship opportunities for such drinks. Alcoholic drinks over 20 degrees are already banned from advertising on Spanish television, prompting numerous companies to introduce lower-strength variants to try to get round the censors, not always successfully.
Many of these products have fallen foul of Spain's advertising authorities, the AAP, over the years on the grounds that while the actual drink being advertised might be below the legal limit for advertising, the brand of which it is a spin off, and which it clearly brings to mind, is not.
The minister made the announcement at the opening of the International Beer Symposium in Spain and added that the distinction was "an important step forward" and that he would support the classification of beer as a "functional food" whose consumption (in moderation) was not only positive but also to be recommended on health grounds.
He stressed the importance of the brewing sector to the Spanish food and drink industry as a whole, given that it generates more sales each year than wine and around the same as olive oil - the two great bastions of the Spanish food sector.
The sector posted sales of €2.1 billion in 2001, some 4.6 per cent more than in 2000, on volumes up 4.7 per cent to 6.9 million.
