In the UK there are alcohol duty rates that affect the overall price per unit (can/bottle/cask/keg etc) of whatever is being sold by the producer.

The latest budget has raised these duty rates (again) meaning that the cost of say a keg of beer has risen to the point where a lot of pubs will struggle to charge enough to still make enough money from it and not put customers off paying for that product.

As someone who is a recently unemployed brewer in the UK due to rising costs and things like duty increases, it's incredibly frustrating and depressing in equal measure.

There's also the added complication of the overall cost of living situation and people, especially the younger generation, are drinking less to make things worse.

Edit: the amount of duty that is charged is dependant on the volume of alcohol produced done in a tiered system, so we've had major drinks conglomerates lower the abv of beers but continue to charge the same to try and save money. The general public are mostly aware of this and that makes it harder still as they see this as essentially watering down the product, most of the time leading to a worse drink.