Small breweries are pleading with Chancellor Gordon Brown to abolish duty on their beers.

A campaign spearheaded from a Sussex pub will lobby Downing Street on the issue next week.

A team at the Golden Galleon pub, at Cuckmere Haven, near Seaford, has become the focal point for the campaign, which has the support of the Small Independent Brewers Association.

They say it is ridiculous for people to travel to France to buy British beers because they are cheaper there and for huge lorries to be travelling through Southern England carrying imported foreign beers.

The cost of a pint brewed by a small independent brewery would come down from £2. 30p to £1.60p if duty was abolished.

For some beers the cost of collecting the tax is more than the yield because of the administration involved.

The Golden Galleon houses one of Britain's smallest breweries, producing Downland Bitter, Cuckmere Haven Best and Saxon Beserker.

Head brewer Alan Edgar and pub owner Stefano Diella, together with a convoy of supporters, plan to lobby Chancellor Gordon Brown and Prime Minister Tony Blair on the issue next Monday.

They plan to arrive at Downing Street in style in a vintage Ford dray laden with beer barrels and escorted by four motorbikes.

Lewes MP Norman Baker will be be among campaigners delivering a petition to Number 10 signed by thousands of beer drinkers demanding the abolition of beer duty for micro breweries.

The campaigners will then sail down the Thames on a chartered river cruiser. Brewery and tourism executives and several MPs are expected to be on board.

Mr Edgar said: "Beer duty, combined with the knock-on effect of foot and mouth and floods of last year, has brought some of micro breweries to bankruptcy and closed village pubs.

"I know of at least three pubs that have closed in Sussex in the past 12 months. And once a pub goes, the community loses its identity.

"It is ridiculous for communities to lose out when something can be done to save them. It makes economic sense for the Government to abolish the tax on breweries which produce less than 60, 000 barrels a year.

"I also think it unfair that a medium sized brewer such as Harvey's should pay the same level of tax on what it produces as much bigger brewers like Courage or Greene King."

Mr Edgar declared: "Keeping village pubs and small breweries helps tourism and in turn helps the local economy. We are not advocating a policy of non-regulation. We are prepared to send in our returns and detail how much we have brewed. But we should not have to pay beer duty on small amounts. It is a waste of time and money.

"We are hoping the Chancellor will support our plea and take action in this year's Budget. We will continue with our campaigning until we get some results."

Mr Baker said: "This campaign has my full support. It is like dog licences. It costs more to administer the beer tax on small breweries than it does to collect."