A jaundiced view of life from the darkest recess of the saloon bar...
Last year, InBev decided to standardise the strength of both bottled and draught UK Stella Artois at 5% ABV, instead of the previous 5.2%. No doubt that missing 0.2% will save lots of wives from being beaten. But it seems that their customers are revolting – recently I have seen a number of off-licences selling the imported 5.2% version, which possibly is brewed to a superior recipe as well. Could it be that customers, when offered the choice, are rejecting InBev’s dumbing down?
Comments, especially on older posts, may require prior approval by the blog owner. See here for details of my comment policy.
Please register an account to comment. Unregistered comments will generally be rejected unless I recognise the author. If you want to comment using an unregistered ID, you will need to tell me something about yourself.
Interested in talking about the kind of subjects discussed on this blog?
Then why not join the Beer and Pubs Forum ?
"The era of big, bossy, state interference, top-down lever pulling is coming to an end." (David Cameron, 2008)
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." (H. L. Mencken)
"The final nails have now been hammered into the coffin of the freedom to smoke in enclosed public places. This piece of legislation must be one of the most restrictive, spiteful and socially divisive imposed by any British Government." (Lord Stoddart of Swindon)
"Raising taxes on alcohol to prevent problem drinking is akin to raising the price of gasoline to prevent people from speeding." (Edward Peter Stringham)
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." (C. S. Lewis)
"People who deal only in 'craft' beer do not care about some dirty old pub and the dirty old people who are in it and the dirty old community that it holds together." (Boozy Procrastinator)
"The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies." (Robert Conquest)
"A Puritan is someone who lives in mortal fear that somewhere, sometime, someone is enjoying himself." (H. L. Mencken)
"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'Wow! What a Ride!" (Hunter S. Thompson)
"No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-Mare." (Kingsley Amis)
"When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves,
For you will have lost the last of England." (Hilaire Belloc)
.jpg)
Samples of beer and cider and review copies of relevant books will be gratefully received – e-mail me for address details.
To contact me directly, please send me an e-mail.
You can also follow me on Twitter at @oldmudgie.
Any proposals of marriage will be given serious consideration - there must be some cash-strapped drunk cat ladies out there!
If you have a blog that links to this, and is at least vaguely on a political or beer-related theme, drop me a line and I'll add it to my blog list, even if I don't agree with you on everything.
When we had our off-licence we made a point of offering Belgian-brewed Stella, as opposed to the Whitbread version as it then was. If you're selling "wife-beater" you may as well go for the real thing!
ReplyDelete