What pubs are really about

Every Saturday, the Daily Telegraph Weekend section has an article about a featured pub. Those written by Adrian Tierney-Jones, as is today’s about the Hunters Inn in North Devon, are generally very good, and concentrate on what the pub is really like. But, unfortunately, some of the other writers spend most of the piece describing the menu and only as an afterthought may mention what beers are on the bar and say something about the character of the place.

Regrettably, much of the writing about pubs that you come across in the mainstream media seems to make the assumption that serving meals is the primary purpose of pubs – a view that is also the fundamental premise of the Good Pub Guide. This is not another rant about pubs “going over to food” – of course pub food is here to stay and some of it can be very good. But surely the key purpose of pubs is to provide somewhere for people to meet and socialise, lubricated by a few drinks, and this is something we should never lose sight of. Fortunately a recent pub crawl around Stockport Market Place showed the tradition of a good night in the pub to be alive and well in a number of establishments, in particular the Boar’s Head and the Arden Arms.

And the recent Channel 4 documentary underlined the point – what the former regulars of the Red Lion at Longden Common missed was not the meals out but the sociability of the pub.

Minimum doubts

A question mark has been raised over the Scottish government’s plans to introduce minimum alcohol pricing by a European court ruling that minimum tobacco pricing breaches competition rules. Hopefully they will realise how misguided and fraught with unintended consequences the plan is before it comes to fruition, but to see it thrown out in court would certainly provide a delicious moment of Schadenfreude.

Limit cut parked

There was a rare piece of good news for licensees and pubgoers in the Irish Republic as Prime Minister Brian Cowan – the son of a County Offaly publican – announced that plans to lower the drink-drive limit from 80mg to 50mg were to be “parked”, following the threat of a back-bench revolt. Irish pubs are already reeling following the smoking ban, and this move would have led thousands more to call last orders. Given that the vast majority of accidents attributed to drink-driving are caused by drivers well over the current legal limit, it has always seemed to me that cutting the limit is a far better way of discouraging responsible people from going to the pub than of improving road safety.

Explosive drinking

In contrast to the tendentious nonsense spouted the other week by Strathclyde chief constable Stephen House that you were less likely to experience violence by going to the pub than by staying at home, Emma Reynolds of Tesco has stated that drinking in the pub is potentially more explosive than doing so at home. She sort of has a point, in that most examples of alcohol-related violence occur in or near licensed premises, and you’re unlikely to come to much harm sitting in front of the fire with a couple of bottles.

But, in reality, the risks involved in going to the pub are pretty small too, especially if you choose your venue sensibly. I struggle to recall when I last saw anything “kicking off” in a pub, and I’m quite often in pubs late Friday or Saturday nights. The biggest risk is probably being involved in a road accident on your way home, especially if you’ve had a bit to drink and are walking.

All this business of saying drinking in the pub is better than at home, or vice versa, is really a false opposition cooked up by the anti-drink lobby to try to divide and rule, and sadly taken up by some defenders of pubs who really should know better. In reality, most people’s experience of drinking alcohol will cover a mixture of the two depending on circumstances.

Does it ever stop?

Scarcely a day seems to go by at present without some self-appointed “expert” from the medical profession clamouring for new curbs on alcohol. This is the latest dictatorial nonsense in today’s Guardian: Alcohol is worse than cigarettes. So why should everyone’s freedom be curbed because a 24-year-old woman in Derby died from alcoholic liver disease? And does it really matter if more than half the population are drinking more than the official guidelines, given that these figures were made up in the first place and have no scientific basis? This is what is in store for us:

Curbs on ads will have to be accompanied by restrictions on sponsorship and opening hours, minimum unit pricing, and a re-evaluation of the delusion that under-age drinking around the family table encourages responsible drinking. I would argue that every health district requires a named individual responsible for local awareness, early detection and effective support and treatment.

Falling off a cliff

Despite all the hysteria in the media about “binge-drink Britain” and our “ever-growing” alcohol problems, the actual facts tell a completely different story, with alcohol consumption falling at the fastest rate for more than 60 years. Indeed, it has been falling steadily for the past five years, despite the introduction of “24-hour drinking”. So remind me again why we need mandatory codes, minimum pricing and all the rest of the panoply of anti-drink measures that are being touted. Obviously the BBPA have an axe to grind, but they are spot-on in pointing out that it doesn’t automatically follow that reducing overall consumption leads to a fall in “problem drinking” and therefore a more targeted approach is needed rather than making everyone suffer.

Cats' protection

Following his speech at the Tory Conference, I wrote to Chris Grayling to express my concern that his plans were likely to adversely affect independent craft producers of beer and cider. I specifically mentioned Robinson’s Old Tom in my letter.

To his credit, he replied very promptly. He said:

Can I reassure you of one thing, though – our plans for a tighter regime for “super-strength” beers and ciders specifically exclude exemptions for traditional craft products – so small producers should not have to worry that we will inadvertently make their lives more difficult in future.

Fair enough, but no promise to protect Old Tom there. I still think this whole plan will run into the sands over the obvious difficulty of making qualitative distinctions between alcoholic drinks of similar strength. I know Tennent’s Super is crap and Duvel is a quality craft product, but how can you enshrine that in a tax system? And, let us be honest, there are parts of the West Country where farmhouse scrumpy plays the same role in society as Tennent’s Super does in central Scotland.

Requiem for the Red Lion

Last night I watched the Channel 4 documentary called The Red Lion. This is the most common pub name in the UK and film-maker Sue Bourne travelled the length of the country to visit ten of them and talk to their regular customers. No doubt the anti-drink lobby would be aghast at some of the levels of alcohol consumption discussed, such as the Lancashire rugby player who admitted to sometimes drinking twenty pints on a Saturday, and the Kent licensee who gave the impression of being a functioning alcoholic and was treating himself to an early-morning “sharpener”. But, overall, it put across a very clear impression of the companionship and sense of community that pubs can provide.

It is very well summed up by this Guardian review, especially the poignant conclusion:

Yes, you find unhappiness in the Red Lion, and people trying to drink away their loneliness. But there's also lots of good times, companionship, cameraderie and laughter. The saddest Red Lion by far is the one in Longden Common. It was the centre of this tiny Shropshire community; everyone went on a Saturday night, unless they were ill, and they tried not to be on a Saturday. But then it closed, and with it went the village’s main point of contact. They used to do stuff together, go on holiday even; now they stay at home and watch telly. I hope they watched this at least, because it was a lovely portrait of a peculiarly British institution.

Nanny turns into bully

This new book looks like essential reading:

The nanny state has given way to a bully state in which politicians coerce the public into submission.

A new book by controversial former MSP Brian Monteith argues that the nanny state is dead but has been replaced by a much more malevolent bully state where we are not just preached at, but forced to do what the politicians think we should.

The Bully State: The End of Tolerance charts the movement from nannying health warnings about smoking, through compulsory motor cycle helmets and seat belts, to the bully times of today, when we can be fined for smoking in our own cars and Marmite is banned in schools.

Monteith warns: “We won't lose the freedoms that we cherish by a military coup or some great cataclysmic war engulfing us, but through the gradual invasion of our private lives by the very politicians we elect to protect us – and all in the cause of looking after our health.

“Today’s politicians think us mature enough to elect them, but too immature to decide what we should eat, smoke, drink or drive. So they give officials powers to snoop on us, enter our homes, fine householders without trial for using the wrong rubbish bins, and make shopkeepers hide the cigarettes under the counter.

“This is not just some left-wing campaign. It started when New Labour and Conservative politicians decided that information and choice weren’t enough in their brave new target-setting world. Now politicians of all colours simply bully us into submission if we do things they don’t approve of.”

I'll only be happy if boozing is banned

Well, actually it’s smoking, but there’s only a fag paper’s width between the two mindsets. A more naked example of the “get them to the camps” mentality is hard to imagine – what a vile, intolerant piece of scum Duncan Bannatyne is.

I’ll only be happy when Duncan Bannatyne is banned.

Twother or not twother?

Well, I’ve concluded my poll on whether allowing two-thirds of a pint measures of draught beer is a good idea. There were 58 responses, broken down as follows:

Good idea: 19 (33%)
Bad idea: 24 (41%)
Agnostic: 15 (26%)

So mixed opinions there, with the antis slightly shading the pros. As I’ve said before, I see no reason why the measure shouldn’t be allowed, and if it takes off I expect I’ll use it. But I suspect the innate conservatism of drinkers and licensees will prevail. We shall see...

Tax those disgusting common drinks

In today’s Times, Janice Turner accurately puts her finger on the rank snobbery that lies behind the Tories’ plans to tax “high-strength” beers and ciders:

So roll up for Grayling’s Great Deals: “Four-pack of super-strength lager UP £1.33!” “Super-strength cider — DOUBLE in price!” “Alcopops — large bottle — a soaraway £1.50 MORE!” Clearly he wanted to show command of detail, how much he’d stiff us on Special Brew to the exact threepennorth. But it conveyed what the caring Tories, with their Iain Duncan Smith understand-don’t- condemn social policy unit, can no longer say out loud: their visceral loathing of the British underclass.

It was only tramp juice, hoody hooch and slag sauce that he will ramp up, not the tipples of respectable folk, the warm ales and clanking cases from the Wine Society. To make that clear, Mr Grayling added an anxious caveat about protecting “those parts of the country with traditional producers”. It was designed, one supposes, to reassure the beardy brewers of Old Scrotum’s Particular, but seemed to suggest that it is perfectly fine to get sozzled on super-strength cider as long as you do so in Somerset.

Grayling will have to clarify how that distinction will be drawn. Maybe he should exempt the products of independent family brewers. Oh, hang on, Wells & Youngs brew Kestrel Super. I can foresee a lot of trouble over this issue, as whatever may be in the minds of the policymakers, it is going to be a struggle to come up with a watertight legal distinction between Carlsberg Special and Old Tom. And even the finest minds in the party would struggle to come up with a legislative formula that could discriminate between Buckfast and Harvey’s Bristol Cream, or Glen’s Vodka and The Famous Grouse. As has often been said, “legislate in haste, repent at leisure”.

Alcohol - the new tobacco

Superb blog post here from Chris Snowdon which really is essential reading for anyone concerned about the future of the drinks trade. He makes the point very clearly that whatever has been visited on the tobacco industry is on its way to hit drinkers ten years down the line. You may think the two are entirely different, but the banners certainly see one as a model for the other. Something which, of course, I have been saying for years.

The drinks industry hates to compare itself with the tobacco industry (understandably), but it really does not matter who they compare themselves with. It matters who the specialists are comparing them with.

The knives are out for alcohol, as they are for various types of food. As I argue in Velvet Glove, Iron Fist, the blue-print was drawn up by the anti-smoking lobby. If the drinks lobby took its head out of the sand it would see that its future lies not with a mere ban on broadcast advertising, but in plain packaging, pictures of diseased livers on their labels and under-the-counter sales. And more. We shall see what the next move against smoking is, before we predict the fate of drinkers a decade or more hence.

The minimum market

Much has been written about the possibility of minimum pricing for alcohol being introduced in Scotland. One aspect that hasn’t really been considered, though, is what effect it would actually have on the drinks market. One thing that is certain is that it would inevitably have unintended consequences, as has every other piece of banning and nannying legislation passed over the last twelve years.

If we assume that the minimum price was set at 50p/unit, as has been widely mooted, that would make the price of 4x500ml cans of Stella £5, a bottle of 13% ABV wine £4.88 and a standard bottle of whisky £14. Not, maybe, eye-wateringly dear, but it would still mean that at least 75% of off-trade alcohol would either rise in price or stay the same. Across most of the market it would effectively eliminate price competition, and lead to the demise of bottom-end products that sell only on price. If manufacturers couldn’t compete on price, they would inevitably look for other ways to differentiate their products, which could lead to an upsurge in advertising, presumably not what the proponents of the policy intended.

Especially in the beer and cider market, there would also be a much closer correlation between strength and price than there is today, with the effect that stronger was widely perceived as better because it was more expensive. Again, raising the kudos of stronger drinks is not quite what they are setting out to achieve.

On the other hand, we could see the alcoholic strength of some products being reduced so they can be sold more cheaply. Probably not to any extent with beers and wines, as this would mark them out as “cheap” and thus inferior. But it could be more likely with spirits. Some spirits are already sold at 37.5% ABV, and to a cash-strapped customer a bottle at £13.13 might seem a lot more appealing than one at £14. It could also mean an end to the practice of charging a premium for half and quarter bottles.

Don't look back in anger

Excellent article here on the Publican website in which Simon Eldon-Edington questions the pub trade’s bizarre and self-defeating love affair with Sir Liam Donaldson in trying to turn pubs into agencies of health promotion.

Sir Liam believes that you, the UK publican, have a responsibility in curbing Britain’s binge-drinking, smoking, and obesity problems. And the UK pub trade associations, based on their last piece of major health legislation negotiated with Sir Liam, bizarrely seem to agree.