Mid-strength midwittery

The Guardian newspaper always has a tendency to regurgitate nonsense on lifestyle issues, and its latest effort is a piece entitled Everyone’s drinking mid-strength – but what actually is it?

A report, published by KAM Insights, has found that, when out at the pub with friends, 50% of UK consumers would rather have two so-called “mid-strength” drinks than one full-strength one. The report, entitled The Mid Strength Opportunity, also finds that 13% of consumers are “coasting”, meaning they’re drinking more mid-strength drinks throughout the evening, so they can stay out for longer and keep tabs on how much alcohol they’re consuming.

However, as the report admits, this research has been funded by an organisation called the Mid Strength Collective, a group of 12 businesses that produce and sell mid-strength drinks, so it’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that they would say that, wouldn’t they?

An obvious problem is that these products simply aren’t visible in the market place. They conjure up one example of a 2.1% lager, but frankly these are products that I never come across either in pubs or the off-trade. Wine-style drinks in the 5-8% strength range are perhaps more common, but again they only occupy a tiny section of the wine aisle and virtually never appear in pubs. And how many people are going to pay £9.99 for a bottle of 5.5% diluted wine? It’s significant that both are conspicuous by their absence in Wetherspoon’s, who can be regarded as pretty representative of the mainstream pub trade in what they stock.

Some years ago, Guinness launched a 2.8% variant that was explicitly called “Mid-Strength”, but this seems to have fallen between two stools and never achieved much traction. Apparently it retains a following in Irish golf clubs to help customers avoid falling foul of Ireland’s now draconian drink-driving law. Nowadays there is a much wider and better-quality range of zero-alcohol offerings, Guinness being a particular case in point, and if people want to reduce their intake while still have something resembling an alcoholic drink, they are much more likely to go the whole hog.

It is certainly true that, in recent years, there has been a reduction in the strength of alcoholic drinks across large swathes of the market. But this has overwhelmingly been driven by duty savings, not by consumer demand. We have seen all four leading smooth bitters, and one of the three biggest-selling ordinary lagers, cut to 3.4%. 4.6% now seems to be the benchmark for premium lagers, and the budget end of the wine market has settled at around 10.5-11.0%. I’ve written extensively about 3.4% beers, and 11% wines are somewhat similar – they can be palatable enough, but always give the impression being a bit lacking.

I don’t remember drinkers complaining that 5.0% Stella was too powerful and wanting its strength cut. Drinks producers have been able to get away with this because consumers can only choose from what is put before them, and few people are really going to be bothered to seek out alternatives for a 0.2% difference in alcohol content, even if they were available. There are one or two exceptions to this. There were widespread complaints about some full-bodied red wines creeping over 14% and thus becoming a bit overwhelming, and there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that cask ales above around 4.5% do not find many takers in the majority of pubs. But I don’t think there were any reports of drinkers shunning 5% lagers.

These kind of stories always seem to make the assumption that people are engaging in lengthy drinking sessions and have to find some way of getting through them while retaining a relatively clear head. But that rests on the further assumption that others are happily downing standard-strength drinks throughout. If you have to find a way of surviving it, maybe you need to reconsider your social life. I suspect this might be related to the student experience. The same applies to be reported phenomenon of “zebra-striping”, that is alternating alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. And how common is that form of drinking anyway, whether in pubs or at home? At a guess, I’d say that the modal average for the number of alcoholic drinks consumed in a pub visit is one. Yes, prolonged sessions do exist, but they are not the norm.

The conclusion has to be that the idea there is a significant potential demand for mid-strength alcoholic drinks is wishful thinking. If people really don’t want a standard-strength drink, they will choose an alcohol-fee one (or a soft drink) instead.