Trundling down the slope

The latest edition of the UK Quarterly Beer Barometer produced by the BBPA confirms the trend of the past two quarters, with a continued steady decline in on-trade beer sales, although not as steep as those often seen over the preceding three years. Over the past year, they are down by 5.2%, compared with an average of 7.4% in 2008-2010. This is more a steady trundle down a slope than a precipitate fall off a cliff. However, even this will lead to a halving of the figure in thirteen years.

Off-trade sales, which are always much more affected by seasonal fluctuations, are down by 3.6% in the year, although slightly up compared with the year to June 2011. The overall beer market is 4.4% down, which no doubt will give Don Shenker some cause for celebration. This may defer the arrival of the “tipping point” when off-trade sales exceed the on-trade, as the retailers seem to have largely passed on the recent duty increase, which has perhaps slowed the rate of change.

Is no cask better than bad cask?

Last night, we were out on a CAMRA pub crawl of the southern fringe of Stockport town centre. We went in one particular pub, a bog-standard, modernised Robinson’s local. The only cask beer available was Unicorn, and it was utterly vile. Not cloudy, not vinegary, but with an overpowering appley off-flavour. Had I been in the pub on my own, I would just have left it on the table and sneaked out, but when you are out in public as the identifiable “CAMRA posse”* you are conscious of the impression you may make, so most of us forced it down.

But if a pub like that can’t keep cask beer in decent nick, then surely it would make sense not to bother at all. Bear in mind this was Friday night, supposedly one of the busiest sessions of the week. The time when “all their pubs serve real ale” was seen as a brewery virility symbol is long gone.

It also must be said how good the atmosphere was in the final venue, Sam Smith’s Queen’s Head – and the Old Brewery Bitter was only £1.52 a pint! This must be a future candidate for the Campaign for Real Pubs.

Incidentally, this was a repeat of the pub crawl described here.

* Only one person present had a beard, although the average age was undoubtedly well north of 40.

Crisis, what crisis?

According to the Portman Group, “alcohol consumption continues to decline, in a trend that has been continuing since the early to mid-2000s”.

The report found that consumption per adult head of population is 10.2 litres – 11% lower than the 2004 peak of 11.5 litres.

The average number of units consumed per week by those who drink is continuing to fall from 18.7 for men and nine for women in 2006, to 16.3 and eight respectively in 2009 – well within the government’s guidelines.

The proportion of men and women drinking hazardously – more than 50 or 35 units per week respectively – peaked in 2000 and has been declining since 2002.

The proportion of pupils who had drunk alcohol in the past week was 13% – its lowest level since records began in 1998.

So what is it that you were bleating about, Mr Shenker?

The ravages of drink

This article so conveniently brings together two of the favourite themes of the Daily Mail – hysterical scaremongering about alcohol and making women feel bad about themselves – that it verges on self-parody. It really is beyond credulity that drinking a daily amount that at most is only slightly above the official guidelines is going to have such an effect on you. You might as well say from comparing the pictures that alcohol will stop you from going grey.

In any case, it is not realistic to expect women in their fifties to all look like Andie MacDowell.

It’s also an urban myth that rosacea and “boozer’s nose” are solely or primarily caused by drinking: “Although alcohol may be a precipitating factor or trigger for rosacea, the stigmata that all patients with the large overgrown nose seen in rhinophyma are in fact alcoholics or "boozers" is absolutely wrong.”

Axe the tax!

The latest addition to the sidebar is a button asking you to sign the petition created by CAMRGB to scrap the 7.5% beer supertax introduced at the beginning of this month. As I and others have argued, this is half-baked pandering to the anti-drink lobby that will do nothing to stop problem drinking, will inhibit innovation in the brewing industry, will harm well-established products that have no link with irresponsible consumption and is potentially fraught with unintended consequences.

Yes, it may turn out to be p*ssing in the wind, but at least by signing it you will have made your voice heard, and hopefully it’s something the entire beer community can rally around.

The petition could have done with a later closing date than 14 January 2012, though.

Supermarket sweep

Here are a couple of photos of prominent local pubs that have recently been turned into supermarkets – the Chapel House in Heaton Chapel (top) has become a Tesco Express, while the rather splendid White Lion in Withington is now a Sainsbury’s Local. It must be said that neither was a recent closure – the White Lion had probably been shut for well over five years, and the Chapel House went through several barrel-scraping incarnations as the Tut’n’Shive (sometimes referred to as the Tub’o’Shite) and Conor’s Bar before finally closing its doors a couple of years ago.

As I discussed here, this seems to be a growing trend. However, obviously it wouldn’t be happening if the pubs had been viable and thriving in the first place. Tesco et al are not causing it, they are simply coming in afterwards and picking up the pieces.

Binge-drink Britain

In a shock revelation, a poll of 101 readers of the Pub Curmudgeon blog showed that, in the past year, 81% had consumed at least 6 pints of beer in a single session, with 35% having drunk a literally staggering 10 pints or more. Don Chancre, Chief Bansturbator of fakecharity Pubs’R’Evil, raged: “This is utterly appalling. Why aren’t these people dead? This only serves to illustrate what a bunch of hypocrites these so-called beer bloggers are when they go on about moderate drinking and yet are happy to condone such disgusting excess!” He then collapsed in a heap, foaming at the mouth, and had to be revived with a refreshing glass of sarsaparilla.

The 2.8% solution

Don’t let anyone tell you that Sam Smith’s aren’t on the ball – the other day I was in one of their pubs and spotted a little sticker on the font for the keg dark mild saying “Alc. Vol. 2.8%”. I think it was previously only 3.0%, so that won’t make much difference to the drinking experience. I wonder if they’ve dropped the price or are keeping the duty saving for themselves. Has anyone else spotted a 2.8% beer on sale in a pub since the duty cut? For that matter, has anyone spotted a pub offering to sell you beer in a two-thirds pint “schooner”?

A super tax

I spotted on my most recent visit to Tesco that the new High Strength Beer Duty had now been applied to the beers over 7.5% ABV, so 4x500ml of Carlsberg Special Brew was £7.68 (43p per unit) and 4x330ml of Gold Label £5.67 (51p per unit). It remains to be seen whether the regular customers of these products will stomach these higher prices, or if their strength will end up being reduced. Ironically, during October Tesco are re-running their generous 4 for £5 offer on a wide variety of British bottled beers, so I could have got 4 500ml bottles of the 6.7% ABV Pedigree VSOP (had they not run out) which would be a mere 37p a unit. I should have checked the price of Duvel – I’ll have to remember that next week.

Forbidden fruit

There’s an interesting article here by Kate Fox – surprisingly on the BBC website – in which she argues that, to a large extent, “the effects of alcohol on behaviour are determined by cultural rules and norms, not by the chemical actions of ethanol.” She points out that in many societies – specifically those bordering the Mediterranean – per capita alcohol consumption is higher than the UK, but there isn’t the same association with violence and sexual abandon. In the 1960s, the French on average drank getting on for four times as much as the British did then, but the streets weren’t full of drunken yobbery and girls throwing up.

I have read that there is a major alcohol problem amongst aboriginal people in Australia, but their typical response to alcohol is apparently a state of zonked-out stupefaction that in this country you would more associate with smoking cannabis.

In recent years, although overall alcohol consumption has been falling in Britain, at the same time we have become more disapproving and censorious about it, so the association with irresponsible and uninhibited behaviour has if anything increased, resulting in lurid exposés like this in the Daily Mail. Perhaps if we were more accepting of moderate drinking in an everyday social context we would have a more mature and relaxed attitude to alcohol in general. Fat chance of that happening then.

Youthful enterprise

12-year-old Tommie Rose from Salford sounds as though he has just the kind of entrepreneurial spirit we need to revive the moribund British economy. But unfortunately he was taking £60 a day selling chocolate bars and fizzy drinks to his schoolmates. Inevitably, this contravened his school’s “healthy eating” policy and so he ended up being suspended.

Now, the school are perfectly within their rights to prohibit trading on school premises, although if his business had been in collectable toys I do wonder whether they would have been so concerned. But, as the school spokesman said, “Activities which undermine our healthy eating policy cannot be tolerated.” Now, where have I heard that kind of sentiment before?

And if the “healthy” school dinners weren’t such unappetising slop, then there might not be the demand for Tommie’s services in the first place.

I also can’t help thinking that the adjective “healthy” has metamorphosed from a description of a state of well-being to a definition of an official ideology of hair-shirted self-denial and restricting oneself to government-approved activities.

Creatures of habit

It used to be a staple anecdote about pubs that you’d wander into an unfamiliar pub and plonk yourself down in a cosy seat only to be told “Sorry mate, you can’t sit there, that’s old Bob’s seat, and he’ll be in in a few minutes!”

It’s probably less likely nowadays, as there are fewer regulars who are in pubs most nights of the week, and despite our ageing population it also seems less common to see groups of pensioners gathered in pubs. But, as with many things, you imperceptibly find what you once dismissed as the habits of the elderly creeping up on you. It’s certainly the case that life tends to settle into more of a routine.

I can’t say that there’s any pub I visit often enough to call myself a “regular”, but there are maybe five or six that, for various reasons, I find myself calling in at least once a month. And, if I think about it, assuming that spot’s available, I always sit in the same place. It’s not the the end of the world if it’s taken, and in most of them there’s somewhere else that’s almost as good, but it’s interesting how these things turn into a regular pattern of behaviour.

I also recall that, in his last years, I would often take my late father in one particular pub where he found the atmosphere congenial. And yes, it was what some would call a “dumpy old men’s pub”, and all the better for it. We would always sit in the same corner and if, for some reason, it wasn’t available he would be a touch discomfited.

Bringing it all back home

A wide spread of responses to this poll on how much off-trade beer people drank. There was 75 replies, of whom 6 did not drink beer at all. Of those who did, 29 (42%) either did not drink at home at all, or only drank the odd bottle. 18 (26%) drank between 3 and 10 bottles or cans, 13 (19%) between 11 and 20, and 11 (16%) over 20. Mind you, assuming that’s all you drink, it’s only an average of 3 pints a day. Not sure whether it really illuminates anything, though.

The fat of the land

Denmark has recently introduced a fat tax imposing an additional levy on all foodstuffs containing over 2.3% saturated fat (an oddly specific figure – how did they arrive at that?). Our esteemed Prime Minister has indicated that this is something he might be willing to consider for the UK (h/t to Leg-Iron for the poster).

This has been extensively discussed already in the blogosphere, but the following points are worth making:

1. There is an inherent contradiction in any such Pigovian tax as, by definition, if it is successful in its objective it will yield little or no revenue. Using the tax system as a means to promote changes in behaviour is a blunt and inefficient instrument that is highly prone to unforeseen and unwanted consequences.
   
2. While it’s hard to see people smuggling crisps, any tax system that imposes arbitrary cut-off points will inevitably lead to action by producers to get around it, as we are seeing with the new beer duty regime. Look forward to a whole raft of products in Denmark coming in at exactly 2.3% fat. These may well be even more “processed” than those they replace, and less palatable to boot.
   
3. It goes completely against common sense to stigmatise such natural, traditional and wholesome foods as butter and cheese, especially as many experts (as quoted in the BBC report about Denmark) believe that “salt, sugar and refined carbohydrates are more detrimental to health”. It is a dangerous game to try to sort foodstuffs into the “healthy” and “unhealthy” as in reality, as has often been said, there are no unhealthy foods, only unhealthy diets. You might perceive fatty burgers as “unhealthy”, but you’d live a damn sight longer on a diet of fatty burgers than on a diet of lettuce and celery.

At a time when we are in the middle of a global debt crisis and have been experiencing riots in the streets, to regard this as any kind of important political issue suggests a highly inappropriate choice of priorities, and indeed is indicative of a yawning disconnect between the political class and the general public, as Brendan O’Neill suggests here:

Cameron’s comments about a fat tax – which would target those great scourges of our age: ‘milk, cheese, pizza, meat, oil and processed food’ – were particularly striking, because they gave an insight into what this oligarchical political class thinks of those who live outside its bubble. We are not political subjects to be engaged with, apparently, but rather bovine objects to be physically tampered with, punished for our gluttony, pressured to ditch those gastro-pleasures which the political and media elites, as they discuss the horrors of sexist language over wine and vol-au-vents, have decreed to be ‘fattening’.

You do have to wonder if eventually the worm will turn and give the politicians a nasty bite on the no-doubt well-padded and fat-laden bum.

Edit: there’s an excellent article here by Basham and Luik in which they arge that “fat taxes” and “sugar taxes” quite simply do not work, and indeed may lead to people eating less “healthily”, not more.

Two pints of milk and a packet of rusks

The Daily Mail reports that the King’s Fee Wetherspoons in Hereford has started running a baby and toddler group in the bar area. It’s only from 10 am to 12 noon one day a week, so isn’t really going to bring about the end of civilisation, although you do have to wonder how well the kiddies will mix with the typical JDW early-doors clientele. But it’s hard to decide which is worse – the fact that it is happening at all, or the ludicrously sanctimonious comments expressing horror at children being taken into such a den of iniquity as a pub.

And it’s not so long ago that Prue Leith was proposing that pubs should be used for serving school dinners in rural areas.