Draught relief

Related terms

Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.

• Law and labelling

  Duty band

  A range of alcoholic strength within which a single rate of alcohol duty applies. The United Kingdom moved to a strength-based banded system in 2023, so a small change in ABV can change the tax substantially.

• Cider

  Draught cider

  Cider dispensed from a cask, keg or box rather than from a bottle or can. In British usage it also implies a serving format eligible for the reduced draught rate of alcohol duty.

• Equipment

  Bag-in-box

  A collapsible plastic bag inside a cardboard carton, fitted with a tap. Because the bag collapses as the cider is drawn, no air enters, which makes it a good format for still, unpasteurised cider.

• Equipment

  Keg

  A sealed pressurised container for dispensing cider under applied gas, as distinct from a cask, which is vented and served by gravity or hand pump.

Where to go next

• Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
• Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
• Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.

Sources

What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.

• Alcoholic products duty rates and the Alcohol Duty regime

  HM Revenue & Customs · regulator · passage verified 2026-08-24

  The UK alcohol duty system was reformed in August 2023 onto a strength-based footing, with draught relief and small producer relief alongside it. The rate table was read on 2026-08-24 and carries an effective date of 1 February 2026. CiderHQ records the band *structure* — which is stable and explains why producers make the strengths they do — and states rates only with that effective date attached, because a rate with no date on it becomes permanent and wrong.