Knocked back

FOR locals seeking refreshment on the hot, grimy streets of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, or for tourists lazing on the beaches of Bali, a chilled brew will soon be harder to come by. The country is on a moral campaign to protect its young from the dangers of alcohol. This month it will ban the sale of beer and other drinks with an alcohol content of less than 5% at more than 10,000 small retailers across the sprawling archipelago, while only supermarkets will be allowed to stock spirits. The aim of the regulation is to “protect the morals and culture of society”. Beer-drinking has grown by half in the past decade.

The government of President Joko Widodo (who is known as Jokowi) took the bold measure without consulting foreign brewers with a large Indonesian market, including Britain’s Diageo, Carlsberg of Denmark and Heineken, a Dutch brewer. Though public drinking is prohibited in Indonesia, in practice local governments have been given leeway in selling alcoholic drinks. Beer sales at convenience stores are already banned in some Indonesian districts that adopt milder aspects of Islamic sharia law. But retailers fret that the opaque phrasing of the new law could mean wholesalers are affected as well; that would wipe out more than half of the country’s distribution chain. Indonesia’s thriving tourism sector could suffer. Some people say that bootlegging will increase.