Brewers in Keighley are calling for a reduction in ale tax to help in the battle against the beer-making giants of the industry.

Charles Dent, boss of award winning Keighley brewery Timothy Taylor, and micro-brewer Jack Atkinson, who runs Goose Eye brewery in Keighley with his son David, want to see a reduction in the excise duty on ale.

They are backing a campaign being spearheaded by the Society of Independent Brewers and the Campaign for Real Ale.

The two pressure groups claim the level of tax is penalising smaller breweries in the battle to compete against global giants like Interbrew.

Mr Dent said: "The real issue is the level of excise -- more than anything else that has caused the closure of breweries. A reduction in excise would also reduce the margin between our beers and foreign beers which encourages racketeering."

Mr Atkinson said he wanted to see a sliding scale of duty based on the number of barrels produced by each brewery. The more the production, the higher the tax. "We want to see something in the region of a 50 per cent reduction for smaller breweries," he said.

He added that big beer companies and breweries already had a huge advantage because they were able to offer large discounts on their beers.

Roger Protz, editor of the Good Beer Guide produced by the Campaign for Real Ale, said that if a sliding scale could be operated in Germany, where there were 1,300 breweries, it could happen in the UK.

"The situation at present is grossly unfair, especially to small breweries like Goose Eye, which just can't compete against the giants," he said.

"Because of their economy of scale, the big outfits can afford to offer big discounts.

"In the past ten years over 40 breweries have closed. The regional and family brewers' share of the beer market has fallen from 22 per cent to 15 per cent in that period and continues to fall," he said.

Nick Stafford, of the Society of Independent Brewers, who runs Hambleton Breweries, a micro-brewer in Thirsk, said it was also vital to reduce the beer barons' monopoly of distribution.

"They dominate the decision making on which pubs take which beers and the methods of distribution," he said.

"Less than one quarter of pubs in the UK are available to small breweries."