Beer - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition beer

Definition :

Beer, a liquor, compounded of malt and hops. The selling of it by retail is regulated by various Acts. The (English) Licensing Act of 1828, which did not allow the sale of beer by retail except in 'alehouses,' etc., requiring a licence from justices of the peace-grantable or refusable in their absolute discretion-not being considered to afford sufficient facilities for supplying the public with beer, the (English) Beer Act of 1830 (11 Geo. 4 & 1 Wm. 4, c. 64), was passed to allow any person to retail beer upon taking out an excise licence only.

This Act was amended in 1834 by 4 & 5 Wm. 4, c. 85, which drew a distinction between houses for the retail of beer to be drunk on the premises where sold-commonly called beerhouses-and houses for the retail of beer not to be drunk on the premises where sold-commonly called beershops, by requiring that the keeper of a beerhouse should obtain as a condition precedent to his excise license a certificate of good character, signed by six rate payers not engaged in the trade.

The (English) Wine and Beerhouse Act, 1869 (32 & 33 Vict. c. 29), by requiring a justices' license-with a saving for vested interests-placed beerhouses, beershops, and alehouses much on the same footing, and the (English) Licensing Acts of 1873 and 1874 have continued this mode of treatment. The (English) Beer Dealers Retail Licenses (Amendment) Act, 1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c. 34), confers on the justices of the peace an absolute discretion to refuse licenses for the sale of beer to be drunk off the premises where sold, repealing pro tanto the Act of 1869, which limited the power to refuse such licenses to cases where the applicant or his house had been proved to bear a bad character or the house to be below a certain rateable value. See now (English) Licensing (Consolidation) Act, 1910 (10 Edw. 7 & 1 Geo. 5, c. 24), which defines 'beerhouse' as premises to which a beerhouse license is attached; and (English) Licensing Act, 1921 (10 & 11 Geo. 5, c. 42). The (English) Finance Act, 1910 (10 Edw. 7 & 1 Geo. 5, c. 35), provides that a person shall not be disqualified for receiving a beer retailer's license by reason only that the premises are not a dwelling-house or that he is not the real resident holder or occupier.

The purity of beer is specially safeguarded by the Inland Revenue Act, 1880, and the Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1885, s. 8. See also INTOXICATING LIQUORS; ADULTERATION.