NONTHABURI -- A fresh law graduate hoping to build a bright career with his illegal homemade beer has been arrested by Excise Department officials on his first day of business and faces jail and a hefty fine under a recently passed law.
Department officials and police raided a three-storey shophouse in tambon Bang Krasor of Muang Nonthaburi district on Saturday night after being tipped off by residents that the place was being used to sell illegal beer to local teenagers.
The team found a roll-up door on the front of the building was closed but one at the back was open. Inside they found 28-year-old Taopipob Limjittakorn selling his home-brewed beer to a group of adult and teen customers for 150 baht per glass.
The second and third floors of the shophouse were being used for beer fermentation and boiling.
The brewer said he was a serious beer lover who had just graduated from the law faculty of an established university. He had bought equipment and tried to brew beer to his own recipe. He spent months fine-tuning it until he got good feedback from university friends and acquaintances.
“I decide to market test selling the beer at 150 baht per glass, but on the first day I was arrested,” Mr Taopipob said.
Officials confiscated all of the beer-making equipment and took Mr Taopipob to Rattanathibet police station, where he was charged with possessing equipment for producing alcohol drinks without a licence, producing alcohol drinks without a licence, possessing alcohol drinks not labelled with paper excise tax stamps, and possession with intent to sell.
Mr Taopipob accepted the first two charges but denied the other two.
Thai law prohibits small-scale brewing. The Excise Department, however, does not have specific figures about the number of cases of people being caught with illegal home-brewed beer.
The maximum penalty for home brewing under the 1950 Liquor Act used to be 200 baht for making it and 5,000 baht for selling it. But a new law passed under the National Legislative Assembly last month raised the maximum penalty for illegal production to 100,000 baht or a prison sentence of six months, or both. The maximum fine for selling illegal beer was raised to 50,000 baht.
The underground home-brewing scene in Thailand started out with less than a dozen brewers a few years ago, with complaints centred around blaming the big breweries for their monopoly and how the law prohibited smaller ones from gaining licences.
Now there are estimated to be more than 100 home brewers, and in only one year eight have introduced overseas production, importing their own beer back into Thailand legally.