False ABVs?

If huge corporations like Volkswagen and Whole Foods lie, think how tempting it must be for a new, tiny brewery.

 

I have spent quite a bit of time in local small breweries and the attitude is always the same - don't take any chances with HMRC. A good brewer can realistically expect pretty consistent extraction from the malt and his ingredient invoices are checked by the Revenue and Customs people. Any significant discrepancies would be questioned. This could happen for example if a brew was lost because of infection.
It's sufficient to read the OG and the FG to calculate the ABV , this is done routinely. Small variations should lie within the allowed leeway.The only difference could lie where beer is primed for conditioning purposes, this is done after the ABV is calculated.

 

Both breweries have great labs in their breweries ... feel free to ask the breweries directly if they put false abvs on their labels.