The biggest domino falls

Last December, I produced a summary of changes resulting from the introduction of the new reduced duty rate for beers of 3.4% or below, which came into effect from 1 August 2023. I noted that, although Boddington’s and Tetley’s smooth beers had been reduced, John Smith’s, the market leader, hadn’t been. But it was always going to be only a matter of time, and the brand owners Heineken have unsurprisingly declared that, from the beginning of February, it too will be cut to 3.4%.

Apparently 1.3 million hectolitres (794,000 barrels) of John Smith’s are still brewed each year at Tadcaster, and it is presumably the biggest-selling ale brand in the UK, and thus the entire world. (This is excluding Guinness, which is technically a type of ale). That is a major shift in the beer market. Predictably, Heineken have come up with disingenuous claims that its has been done for health reasons, to reflect drinkers’ preferences for lower-strength beers, but it is obvious to anyone with half a brain that duty savings were the overwhelming consideration.

This news resulted in a predictable outbreak of snobbery along the lines of “who drinks John Smith’s anyway?” But a lot of people do – those 794,000 barrels represent not far off 3% of the entire beer market, far more than any individual cask brand. (Cask Doom Bar sells 88,000 barrels a year, and the bottled version will probably do at least the same.) And you cannot stand there on your little rocky island and ignore the tides of watery beer lapping ever closer to your feet.

In any case, the cask sector isn’t immune either. Greene King IPA, the third biggest-selling cask beer, was quick off the mark to reduce its strength last year. Since I wrote last December, I have learned that two more leading brands of bitter, Tetley’s and Banks’s have followed suit. Several smaller brands have done the same, most recently Taylor’s Golden Best. Ordinary bitter isn’t the dominant force that it once was, and only includes one of the top ten brands, but this is certainly a significant trend.

It must be remembered that many in the industry, plus CAMRA, supported increasing the lower-strength cut-off from 2.8% to 3.4%. CAMRA has always had something of a soft spot for lower-gravity beers, and has for many years run campaigns to promote Mild. Giving a boost to these beers seemed an appealing idea. For example, in this press release from 2021 they said “Cutting tax for lower ABV drinks will incentivise lower strength alcoholic drinks”.

It doesn’t seem to have occurred to them that creating such a steep duty cut-off would lead to the large-scale watering down of beers at higher strengths. On a smaller scale, it’s a repeat of the Beer Orders, where well-meaning support for a legislative change led to severe unintended consequences, in this case the British beer market being swamped with a tide of bland, watery beers. “When we said we want to support lower-strength beers, we didn’t mean there should be a lot more of them!”

It was virtually impossible to brew beers at 2.8% with much body or character, and most brewers didn’t try. But 3.4% is a different matter. A 3.4% beer can be sort of OK, palatable enough, although it’s unlikely to uproot any trees. And there were already plenty of well-regarded milds and light bitters of that strength, although subtlety tended to be a typical characteristic.

Back in the 1950s, most beers were like this. As Anthony Avis wrote in his memoir about Norfolk beers: “All the Norwich brewed beers, before and after the last war, were much the same – thin, flat and lifeless; however, they suited, or appeared to suit, the customers.” It wasn’t a matter of rapid inebriation, more of a gentle lubricant to habitual socialising. Plus at this time the actual strength of beer was never declared. So drinkers may well end up grudgingly putting up with these beers even if they’re not particularly enthusiastic about them.

As far as I can see, Worthington Creamflow remains at 3.6% both on draught and in cans, but surely it is only a matter of time before that is cut too. And I’d expect the brand owners of Fosters and Carling to be at least discussing whether they should also take the plunge. It may even have come up in the Guinness boardroom, although I can’t see that happening. As I said in my earlier blogpost, it will take some time before this change fully works its way through the beer market. It would not surprise me if, by 2026, fully half of all beer sold in Britain is 3.4% or below. You may not like it, but you’ll be left with little choice other than to lump it.

Worthington Creamflow is, of course, a staple of the Wetherspoon’s beer offer, and there remains the conundrum of the ABVs declared on the Wetherspoon’s app. Both Carlsberg and Bud Light have officially stated that their strength has been cut to 3.4%, but they are still declared at 3.8% and 3.5%. And UK supplies of Leffe have now been cut to 6.0%, but the app shows it as 6.6%. Are Wetherspoon’s being remiss in not updating their app, or are they getting special supplies of stronger brews?