Reported in the Guardian and other newspapers at the time, but I'm afraid I can't give dates; a good 15 years ago, at any rate. It will have been a little before UK law was changed to oblige brewers to display the original gravity of their beers on labels and so on. It wasn't to do with the nationality of the company or its owners (and I don't know if they ran the same scam in Ireland, though I'd be surprised if they didn't); just the normal greed of all major brewers.