Coming soon to a bar near you?

When faced with a problem demanding a solution, human ingenuity can be an impressive thing, and in response to the smoking ban it’s now come up with the E-Cigarette. This looks like a normal filter cigarette, but contains a battery and an electronic mechanism to release a controlled, smoke-free dose of nicotine into the “smoker’s” lungs. As there is no smoke, it’s entirely legal to use indoors. As much of the support for the smoking ban was based on naked, dog-in-the-manger hatred that defied rational analysis, I look forward to the spluttering outrage of antismokers seeing people using these devices in pubs and bars. They’ll probably then campaign to ban them, of course.

Seen but not heard (again)

There’s a lot of space devoted in the press today to the launch of the latest Good Pub Guide, with editor Alasdair Aird saying they had received a record number of complaints about unruly children in pubs, something with which I have great sympathy.

Surely the time has come when publicans must recognise this concern and do something to address it. Obviously nowadays it’s unrealistic to expect all pubs to be child-free, but there’s no real reason for children to be in non-food pubs at all, and in those serving food, why can’t a certain proportion of the interior be set aside for adults?

There’s a lot to be said for Wetherspoon’s policy of limiting adult diners accompanying children to two drinks as well, so the parties move on once they’ve finished eating. Responsible adults should not be taking their children out with them for a prolonged drinking session.

Sigh of relief confirmed

Excellent news for pubs and pubgoers that the government have finally confirmed they have no current plans to reduce the drink-drive limit. Given that most of the great and the good seem to have expressed support for this, I’m slightly puzzled as to what the thought processes are behind it, as I was when it was more seriously proposed ten years ago. I strongly suspect that the senior police officers are in private much more sceptical than they are in public, and recognise that in practice it would do little or nothing to reduce casualties while forfeiting much public support.

The government would also have had to grasp the nettle of whether to impose mandatory bans at 50 mg. If they did, we would have a far stricter drink-drive régime than any of our major Continental neighbours, whereas if drivers were only subjected to points and a fine between 50 and 80 mg, as is usual in the Continent, the unholy alliance of anti-drink and anti-car pressure groups would have accused them of letting drink-drivers off the hook. Either way, it’s opening a can of worms.

The combination of the financial crisis and the slump in Labour’s electoral support probably led them to conclude it just wasn’t worth pursuing at the moment. But I’m sure the threat hasn’t entirely gone away…

The news report also parrots the oft-heard nonsense that “Britain is to become the only European country that allows motorists to have at least one alcoholic drink and still be legally fit to drive.” This in fact is quite untrue - a 50 mg limit would still allow most people, unless very lightly-built, to consume a pint of ordinary-strength beer, a medium glass of wine, or a double whisky, and still drive legally. And surely a half of mild counts as an alcoholic drink, and you might be able to get away with three of those.

£2.23!

I took a look today at the Roebuck in Urmston, one of Holts’ flagship pubs, which was badly damaged by fire a couple of years ago and has been given an extensive and thoroughgoing refurbishment. It’s not bad at all – although done in a generally “contemporary” style, it retains a vault and the lounge still has a fair amount of traditional pub-style bench seating.

But I was taken aback to be charged £2.23 for a pint of Holts Bitter – a full fifteen pence more than Original Bitter in my local Hydes pub. Make no mistake, the beer was good, the pub is smart and comfortable, and I don’t begrudge paying that. But it’s a far cry from the days twenty years ago when Holts were champions of the good value pint. Even in the Griffin in Heaton Mersey it’s still somewhere in the £1.70s.

At about ten past two on a Saturday afternoon there was a notable dearth of customers in the vault – you do have to wonder whether Holts have thrown the baby out with the bathwater in trying to take their pubs upmarket.

The woman who waters the workers’ beer

Here’s a picture of Sally Keeble MP, who has sponsored the Private Members’ Bill calling for the introduction of minimum drink pricing. As I am not The Devil’s Kitchen, I will go no further than to call her a miserable cow.

But it struck me that this is a profoundly snobbish measure – the middle classes will still be able to jug themselves to oblivion on craft-brewed ales, chateau-bottled wines and single malt whiskies, but the poor will have to pay more for cheap crap, which is often all they can afford. It will, in practice, inflate the household bills of poor families while leaving the better-off completely unscathed. In short, it is a highly regressive measure – but of course, as we have seen with tobacco duty, self-proclaimed socialists have never been afraid to screw the poor financially.

Also, despite its declared intentions, surely minimum pricing will end up placing more emphasis on alcoholic strength, not less, as at the lower end of the drinks market there will be a much more direct association between price and strength. If it commands a price premium, stronger will be perceived as better to a much greater degree than at present.

I’ll drink tae that

Excellent news from Scotland that the SNP’s ill-considered plan to raise the minimum age for buying alcohol in the off-trade from 18 to 21 have been decisively defeated by 72 votes to 47 in the Scottish Parliament.

Of course the killer point against this is the one made by Tory deputy leader Murdo Fraser: “They are creating an even more ludicrous situation whereby a soldier returning from a tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan at the age of 20 cannot buy a bottle of champagne from the off-licence to celebrate with his wife on his return.” A point also made in my Opening Times column for October.

And of course the proposal does not sit at all well with the SNP’s declared intention to reduce the voting age in Scotland to 16.

It’s also worth having a look at the very responsible and well-argued website produced by CARDAS, the mainly student-led Coalition Against Raising the Drinking Age in Scotland.

The minimum Trojan horse

Although in my view it’s a bad idea for numerous reasons, many supporters of pubs have been attracted to the idea of minimum pricing of alcohol as a means of curbing some of the discounting excesses in the off-trade. But what is being proposed in a Private Members’ Bill put forward by Sally Keeble MP goes far beyond a simple flat-rate minimum price per unit.

The private members’ bill calls for the setting up of a Drinks Industry Council (DIC), made up of representatives from the industry, producers, police, health care, youth sector and consumers, which would advise Government on a minimum price for a unit of alcohol, promotions and set codes of conduct.

The minimum price would be set by the Government after advice from the DIC with different prices being set depending on product, alcoholic strength, region and the type of establishment selling it. The minimum price would be reviewed every year.

The Bill also calls for limits on alcohol advertising by supermarkets and the areas in which alcohol can be displayed and the introduction of a standard warning label for all drinks.

In other words, the creation of a whole new structure of bureaucratic control to regulate prices across all sectors and many other aspects of the drinks trade. In reality, with the vast burden of regulation they suffer already, the trade need that like a hole in the head. And, with “health” interests involved, you can be sure that there would be a steady year-on-year pressure to raise prices and cut back promotions.

And nobody has yet answered the question as to who benefits from the difference between the official minimum price and the market price.

A sigh of relief?

It's reported in the Sunday Times today that the government have backtracked on reported plans to reduce the drink-drive limit:

Ministers will also announce plans to toughen the regime for drink-driving, although they will reject calls from police and campaigners to reduce the drink-drive limit from 80mg of alcohol per 100mg of blood to 50mg.

Let's hope this proves to be true, as such a measure would lay waste to the remnants of the pub trade even more comprehensively than the smoking ban has done.

Skullsplitter threatened with axe

I see Orkney Brewery's Skullsplitter strong ale is the latest target of the politically correct brigade. This post by Mr Eugenides sums it up better than I ever could. It's also discussed here by The Pub Philosopher.

Is there any evidence that such beers actually do encourage alcohol-related violence or problem drinking? I don't think so. Indeed, the multi-beer free houses where they are likely to be encountered are some of the most notably problem-free of venues, although occasionally there may be a boisterous edge to the craic that would get the killjoys tut-tutting.

Only too true

I'm sure many struggling British pubs wondering when the promised post-ban influx of non-smokers was going to arrive could put up a sign very like this American one:

At your disservice

Spending a few days away recently unfortunately reacquainted me with the lamentable standard of service prevailing in restaurants in Britain. Now, I would have thought the job of a waiter wasn’t too difficult – you simply have to keep track of events on a handful of tables, and politely nudge them on to the next stage in the proceedings once it is obvious they are ready to order or have finished each course. But this is obviously far beyond the typical staff encountered nowadays, resulting in extended longeurs even when the place isn’t remotely busy.

Worst of all is actually managing to extract a bill from them. You’ve finished your dessert and coffee, and sit there for twenty minutes or more looking at your watch, drumming your fingers on the table and staring into space. No response whatsoever. So eventually you have to accost a member of the staff – invariably not the one who actually served you – and ask if you can have the bill now. They look at you as if you have just asked to molest their three-year-old daughter, stomp off and eventually produce it ten minutes later. Once you have gone through the rigmarole of presenting a credit card and getting it back it can all too easily be a full hour since the last drop of food or drink passed your lips, in which time you could have missed a train, a date or an interview. This has happened even in very busy restaurants where you might have thought freeing up a table would be a priority.

It may be regarded as down-market, but the typical pub practice of paying for your food at the time of ordering has much to be said for it if your time is limited.

Heading South

I’m a Northerner, and in many respects a strong defender of the North of England, but one thing I have little time for is the “traditional Northern head” on beer, which in reality is a tradition that goes back no more than two or three decades. Pulling beer through a tight sparkler and serving it with a thick collar of foam can all too easily knock the life out of it and blunt its flavour.

So I always enjoy a visit to the South of England, particularly the South-West, where beer is typically served with a notably shallower and thinner head. When it’s fresh and well-kept, this allows the flavour and character to shine through in a way they can never do with a Northern head, although it must be admitted that it also does nothing to disguise flat, tired beer.

Particular praise must go to the White Hart in Cheddar which on a recent visit served up a very tasty pint of Butcombe Bitter – one of my favourite beers – after a slow and trying journey through the roadworks over the Avonmouth Bridge.

No sign of the inn

In one of the most ludicrous examples of anti-drink political correctness I have yet seen, Wiltshire County Council have joined forces with the Highways Agency to compel pubs to remove roadside direction signs, on the grounds that they may act as an incentive to drink-driving.

Do they really think that drivers on seeing one of these signs will pull off the main road, have a skinful at the Dog & Duck and then return to the highways to cause carnage? The idea that in practice they will act as any kind of incentive to drink-drive offending is simply incredible.

To be consistent, are they going to also demand the removal of signs pointing to any other establishment with an alcohol licence, such as hotels or restaurants, not to mention supermarkets? And what about pubs that are already situated by the roadside – will they have to remove all advertising material?

Nowadays, most country pubs derive a large part of their income from food – many having become to all intents and purposes restaurants. For the vast majority of drivers, these signs say one thing: “Here is somewhere to stop for food”, as is clearly shown by the photograph.

Especially worrying are the comments of Jacqui Ashman of the Highways Agency:

No alcohol is allowed to be served or consumed in service stations on motorways as a matter of principle and we would wish to continue this principle by not encouraging drivers to break their journey in a public house.

Why not? Even if you accept the argument that drivers should not consume any alcohol whatsoever, most pubs will offer a far wider range of soft drinks than motorway service areas, and will also provide a much more relaxing atmosphere. Service areas exist purely to serve road travellers, while pubs cater for a much wider and more diverse market. And service areas in many Continental countries serve alcohol with meals without the roads becoming a scene of mayhem.

And the point must be made that, even though the likes of Ms Ashman may want it to be different, drinking alcohol before driving is still permitted in this country so long as you do not exceed the prescribed legal limit.

Regrettably this is just another small, subtle way of undermining the trade of pubs and accelerating their decline.

No draught in here

A few years ago I commented on pubs keeping their doors open on chilly September evenings in a futile attempt to make people believe it was still summer. I came across some more of this the other week. Once the sun has gone down, the temperature can drop rapidly at this time of year, and bar staff working up a sweat behind the counter may not realise that customers are sitting in a freezing draught.

While this wasn’t house policy, I found myself in one otherwise good pub where customers were getting up to shut a non self-closing door every couple of minutes.

Tramp juice

My previous post on the tendency to level down beer strengths led me to ponder on the morality of selling super-strength lagers such as Carlsberg Special Brew and Tennent’s Super at strengths of up to 9.0% ABV. Some groups have criticised these brews on the grounds that they are disproportionately favoured by people with severe alcohol problems, hence the nickname of “tramp juice”.

Their producers would argue, of course, that there are plenty of other alcoholic drinks available at similar or higher strengths, including ciders and wines in non-resealable containers, and that market research shows the majority of consumers of these products are not problem drinkers. A quick look around off-licence shelves also showed that in terms of price per unit they were at a similar level to other beers and lagers, so they aren’t a particularly cheap way of getting drunk.

Beer differs from other drinks in that it is available in a wide variety of strengths, whereas wine and spirits tend to be sold at a common strength, or at least over a very narrow range of strengths. I argued below that there were many beers whose strength was an integral part of their character, and so any attempt to set a mandatory ceiling on beer strength would be unreasonable.

However, strong beers should be savoured for their rich flavour and character, not guzzled as a rapid path to inebriation. Selling these beers in 440 ml or 500 ml cans does rather suggest that the latter is the prime objective. So, at a time when a spotlight is being directed at the social responsibility of the drinks industry, it might well make sense for their producers to switch to selling them in 330 ml cans, and also to downplay their alcoholic strength in marketing and pack design.

And might a strong lager actually be more palatable at around 6.5-7% ABV rather than 9% when the taste is largely overwhelmed by alcohol? It is widely considered that the 7.2% Carlsberg Elephant Beer is a far superior brew to the 9.0% Special Brew.