The 3.4% dilution

I recently spent a few days in Taunton in Somerset. While it’s an interesting place, and a good base for exploring the surrounding area, it has to be said that it’s far from Britain’s best pub town. One that I visited was the Ring of Bells which, for some reason, more than three years after the end of lockdowns, is still operating a policy of table service and card payments only. I asked the waiter what guest ales were available, and he ran through the list. One from Otter sounded promising, so I asked what strength it was. “Oh, 3.4%,” he replied. So I decided to give it a swerve and choose something else. And that illustrates one of the key problems with 3.4% beers, that nobody really wants them.

Just over a year ago, at the beginning of August 2023, the duty on beers of 3.4% ABV or below was more than halved. Since then, predictably, huge swathes of the British beer market that were previously above this figure have seen their strength reduced. This includes Greene King IPA, Ruddles Bitter, Carlsberg lager (outside of Wetherspoon’s) and all four of the leading brands of smooth bitter. However, again predictably, most of the savings seem to have gone to brewers rather than pub operators or drinkers. Drinkers have’t asked for this; it has been entirely driven by tax savings.

Before the First World War, the typical strength of British beer was between 5 and 6%. However, during that conflict, a shortage of barley combined with steep duty increases imposed by Lloyd George brought about a drastic reduction in its strength. For the next four decades at least, Britain had some of the weakest beer in the world. However, in a more sober era, this was generally accepted, and beer was seen more as a gentle lubricant to sociability, or a means of replacing fluid for manual workers, rather than something that would get you drink. As Anthony Avis wrote in his memoir about the history of the British brewing industry, “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.”

There was a significant change in 1959 when, for the first time in many years, beer duty was reduced, and this was the catalyst for a major change in the beer market. In the early 1960s, Mild was still the biggest seller, but from the on Bitter, which was typically stronger and had more character, pulled ahead, and eventually reduced Mild to insignificance.

More, recently, while we may not have been drinking “less but better”, we are certainly drinking “less but a bit stronger”. Most of the best-selling cask ales are now in the 4.0-4.5% ABV range, and the most popular lagers seem to cluster around the 4.5-4.6% mark. The 4.6% Moretti recently overtook the 4.0% Carling as the biggest-selling lager in the UK. There is no spontaneous market trend to favour 3.4% beers.

CAMRA has always had a tendency to sentimentalise low-gravity beers. But the truth is that most of these milds and light bitters were thin, bland and forgettable, and were simply drunk without much thought as part of a routine of social interaction. Nobody much mourns Whitbread West Country Pale Ale, the 1030 OG beer that for many years was the only cask ale in many pubs around the Severn Valley. The limited number that have survived to the present day tend to be the more characterful examples, and many of them are actually over 3.4% anyway.

In the 1950s and 60s, when people just tended to drink the house mild or bitter in a limited range of pubs, a reduction in strength would in general have been grudgingly accepted, as they had nowhere else to go. Even today, the drinkers of products like John Smith’s Smooth are likely to be creatures of habit, and a reduction from 3.6% to 3.4% won’t be enough to make them look elsewhere. Reducing a beer’s strength by only one or two points will make little appreciable difference.

But today’s beer market is much more open and fluid than it was a generation or two ago, and if presented with a range of options drinkers are unlikely to opt for the weakest one. This isn’t because they’re chasing strength for its own sake, but that 3.4% beers are in general a bit lacking. As I wrote about the John Smith’s reduction, “A 3.4% beer can be sort of OK, palatable enough, although it’s unlikely to uproot any trees.”

I recognise that I am not a remotely representative beer drinker. At home, I’m not the kind of person to work his way through a pile of cans while watching TV, and generally I just want the one. While I do buy beers down to around 4.0%, I really wouldn’t want a 3.4 unless it either came as part of a multipack or someone had given it to me.

In the pub, things are slightly different as I’m more likely to have a multi-pint session, and there is also more of a reason to maintain a relatively clear head. I might well choose a 3.4% beer where that strength is appropriate to its traditional character, such as Taylor’s Golden Best or one of the two Sam Smith’s milds. Although it has been (perhaps puzzlingly) kept at 3.5%, the 1863 light mild is often my choice in Hyde’s pubs. However, if presented with a choice of guest or seasonal ales, something that was only 3.4% would be unlikely to pique my interest. Plus there is rarely much, if any, saving on the price.

The conclusion must be that, while a substantial part of the beer market has now been brought down to 3.4%, it is a trend that has been entirely driven by tax considerations, not consumer preference. And is it really a healthy situation where so much of what is on offer is not what drinkers really want?