This month the government has quietly stepped up its attack on binge drinking, by increasing tax on beers such as Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, Fullers Vintage and Belgian classic Duvel.

For years these beers have been the staple of Britain’s drinking woes, associated with football hooliganism, anti-social behaviour, reckless vandalism and drunken brawls in market towns across the land. In northern England such beers are being blamed for virtually all teenage pregnancies and at least 99.7% of Saturday night street vomiting.

Kestrel Super, (£0.004495 per ml)* equally responsible for binge drinking as...

...Dark Island Reserve, a mere 6.7 times more expensive for just 1.5 times as much beer

The above of course is not true, even if you add to the list Tenants Super and Carlsberg Special Brew. But, in a bizarre and cruel twist of legislation, beers over 7.5% are being singled out for a significant increase in tax duty under the banner of improving our fine nation and reducing the drink related burden on society.

The high strength beer duty amendment is detailed here and here – in practice it will probably mean a rise in price of anywhere between 10p and 75p per bottle of higher strength beer – roughly a 5%-10% increase in price per bottle.

It’s a nonsensical argument – these beers account for 0.5% of UK alcohol sales and include the most expensive beers available to buy. The majority of these beers are not consumed for binge drinking despite the reputation of some of the canned beers that fall within this category. As a headline though, HSBD is an easy sell to Daily Mail readers whose ignorance (in the dictionary sense of the word) of artisan beers means that on paper the change in law seems like a no-brainer.

The government of course know this, and they know that premium drinkers will pay premium prices. They also know that they can get away with singling out beer for their fight on booze. After all how would the audience of Saturday Kitchen feel if all wine over 7.5% suddenly received a hike in price due to tax? How would Mr J Sainsbury, Mr WM Morrison et al feel?

Controversial but delicious

Duvel - one classic set to rise in price

Strong beers make great candle holders

Tempting, luscious, and one to drink slow

Beer in the UK is experiencing a renaissance. So, in times when we desperately need to stimulate the economy, why add measures that thwart innovation in a growing industry?

On balance UK brewers are benefitting from three measures that will help trade: small brewer’s relief, the launch of the 2/3 measure and the reduction in duty on beers under 2.8%, which we entirely commend (even though we currently only know of five beers that will benefit, made by Harvey’s, Greene King and JW Lees).

Yes we think the government should encourage small measures (how else to enjoy a strong beer?!). And yes we believe there is not only a market but a need for less strong beers (despite obesity levels we are an increasingly health obsessed society, and whilst most brewers will agree that brewing a tasty beer under 3.4% is not easy, it’s a market to untap).

Taxing strong beers is taxing the endeavour of brewers. It is taxing the concept of slow food, and more than that, it’s fundamentally not tackling the issues it’s purported to be addressing.

Does anyone remember those three words ‘Education, education, education.’

They may have been uttered by a different party to those in blu-tacked power, but when it comes to booze, there are no three words better placed to resolve our countries struggle with the binge.

Recommended reading:

• By us, on binge drinking and elections
• The Independent, on canned super lagers in 1993
• BBC Inside Out on high strength lagers (before they employed web designers it would seem) http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/content/articles/2008/05/01/london_superstrength_alcohol_s13_w10_feature.shtml
• On Kestrel Super, and again
• Opinions on HSBD – Zak Avery, James Clay, SW Brewery, The Indy, Moor Beer, Gadds, Broadford Brewer, Magic Rock, PDNC, Ghost Drinker
• On the under 2.8% tax (and some crucial caveats) – Hardknott Dave, Big Hospitality
• On supermarket beer prices http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2011/10/super-tax.html,

And beer prices or tax duties come from our secondary research:

• Kestrel price http://www.britishcornershop.co.uk/product.asp?id=6331
• Dark Star price http://www.beerritz.co.uk/buy/orkney-dark-island-reserve-2010-release_690.htm
• Beer duty in £s: various above plus comments of http://www.pencilandspoon.com/2011/09/new-duty-rates-on-beer-and-new-glass.html and http://thebeerboy.blogspot.com/2011/10/higher-strength-beer-duty-my-view.html

And for some high strength beer reviews during October, see our friends at http://thebeercast.com/2011/10/big-beer-month.html

The Society of Independent Brewer’s this week released a new video entitled “Proud of British Beer”.

A call to arms for beer lovers and the wider public to be proud of British beer it seems, but as with anything that has been this well produced (bet the hops and malt store look good in HD!!! – sorry beer geek talking!) it has objectives and an agenda, namely the governments above inflation rise in beer duty.

The issues highlighted in the video are multi-faceted and are likely to provoke mixed reactions, especially when you consider the wider economics, the macro-environmental factors affecting the industry and the relationship between British beer and Britain’s drinking culture. Or cultures.

Whether you wholeheartedly disagree with the duty increases or find the video nothing more than propaganda; whether you find the backdrop of I Vow To Thee My Country nauseating or uplifting, SIBA have created a contemporary rallying cry, something that some people think CAMRA is struggling to do.

The average man on the street might not know who Steve Wellington is, but surely people of all ages would be proud of British beer simply based on the aplomb he delivers his single line with.

What do you think?

Read the rest of this entry »

This week is all about health and alcohol, binge drinking and the ridiculous attempts to win voters round with lies, damned lies and statistics. The debates rages across blogs; off- and online media report the press releases rather than investigating the true stories behind the official papers and reports; and I daresay a fair few people are a bit lost in the fast moving pace of the heated discussion¹. And I’m sure plenty of you will have heard much of what I have to say before as well.

I’m not jumping in with any stats – the job done by Mr PBBB is fantastic in highlighting that Disraeli’s old adage is as true now as it ever has been. Even more so the comments added to his blog and to other blogs, and the subsequent inspired posts (in the UK and beyond) has led to real, interesting debate and points of view that aren’t immediately at the forefront of everybody’s minds.

I’d rather stay clear of quantitative or qualitative data and focus a little more on the reaction to all this, the where do we go from here. Stats aside, alcohol misuse, abuse, even just plain alcohol use does cause society problems, whether in conjunction with other factors of not, and that regardless of if that’s increasing or decreasing, it would be quite nice to stop some of it and make our country a better place.

In honour of all this I've used a lovely photo of some empty beer glasses to highlight the issues surrounding binge drinking... (thanks Julie!)

A few things strike me. One, that alcohol (or should I say the effects of abusing alcohol) is, like anything, intrinsically linked to behaviour and attitude and that isolating it as the sole cause of a specific misdemeanour or health issue seems, statistically, difficult. Anti-social behaviour (vandalism, crime, assaults), health issues (liver disease, injuries from being drunk) and other consequences (drink driving, loss of productivity) are all affected by numerous things – and many of the stats communicated to us by the powers that be seem to ignore this simple fact.

Secondly, it strikes me that there aren’t that many answers in the Great Alcohol Debate of 2010 and that’s not a criticism – it’s a delicate and complex matter. But what have the people sitting in Westminster done about this? Slammed producers of alcohol², branded publicans as irresponsible³ and patronised responsible drinkers who have continental, liberal attitudes⁴. Furthermore they’ve devised simplistic, slapstick tactics planned, from where I see it, simply to trick the public⁵. Banning dentist chairs? You really are out of touch with reality folks.

Two of the simplest points of all that undermine much of the policy makers outbursts have been made what seems like a thousand times (in one way or another) in the last 12 months but get little airplay with any major media outlet.

If people want to get drunk they will.

If an alcoholic wants a drink they will go to Tesco or the corner shop, they will buy a bottle of screw top wine/screw top vodka/ring pull cans of lager or bitter and they will head home, drinking them on the way most likely. If an alcoholic is hiding their problem from their family they will slip the bottle in their jacket⁶. They will hide a bottle under the sink⁷, in the toilet cistern⁸, in the greenhouse⁹.

If a young person wants to be the hardest bloke in town and wants the respect (fear) of everyone that heads out on a Friday night, he will get pissed and start a fight regardless of the price of a vodka red bull. If a young girl wants to throw spirits down their neck every evening and not have a job and shag around and stick two fingers up to society, they will. The price off alcohol won’t put them off.¹⁰

Alcoholics will find a drink if they want one. A simplistic view, yes, but one that my experience suggests is pretty accurate. Pic: phogel (not suggesting this chap is dependent on alcohol!)

Supermarkets sell alcohol cheaply yet legislators have been reluctant to go near the off-trade in this way. Picture: sergis blog

If people want to get drunk cheaply, they won’t buy fine wines or artisan beers

Yep, they’ll head for the offy, for the stack-em-on-the-floor-stack-em-high bargain outlets, for the supermarket. They’ll find it a lot more conducive to forgetting about live if they throw own brand vodka, aluminium beers and £1.99 white wine down their necks than ordering a Tokyo*, waiting 3 days for delivery and watching £17 (including delivery) disappear from their bank account.¹¹

There are lots of other ‘personas’ I can stereotype and situations I can try to second guess, some I have experience of some I don’t. I don’t have all the stats, I don’t have all the facts. But I know some of the psyche of both binge drinkers and alcoholics. I’ve lived the small town mentality of ‘going out’, ‘heading up the club’ and ‘getting smashed’ not that long ago. I matured and went to uni, I ‘got smashed’, I stayed out late, I missed lectures, I made friends for live, we did silly things. But fundamentally my attitudes towards society means that I consider myself a ‘law abiding citizen’, bar some breaches of copyright via music cassettes and being a month late with my vehicle tax. Oh and I owe the car park man £3.50 from last week and I haven’t reminded him on two occasions I’ve seen him since¹².

Some people are going to abuse alcohol, some people are going to abuse the goodwill society shows them and the opportunities they are presented with. Some people don’t have as many opportunities as others and this affects their behaviour in life. Some people have bad starts in live that I wouldn’t wish on anyone, and those bad starts result in bad endings (of course many people start this way and end up ‘just fine’ as well). Some people have the best opportunities, great jobs, loving families, and fall into a downward spiral of disease that ruins their live). My point: you can change how you measure alcohol, you can faff about with pricing, you can ban adverts, ban references to alcohol, ban sponsorship and tell everyone alcohol will kill you. But you are never treating the problems.

An ad for ITV News juxtaposes happy images against a cold hard 'fact'. Unfortunately the visual representation highlights how easy it is to tarnish everyone with one brush

So, I urge I urge politicians, journalists and all those in the business of selling alcohol (whether on- or off-trade) to take a read of what is being said online this week and listen to a broader spectrum of opinions than less-than-independent-bodies¹³ and the scaremongering press releases¹⁴. Then not just consider, but actually try to do something about the real issues. Education, anti-social behaviour (for which alcohol is often a catalyst rather than a cause), alcoholism. Stop putting your nation of drinkers in one big basket promising to tax the high hell out of everything in easy-target-quick-win PR stunts. Tax where appropriate; tackle the attitudes that cause people to not give two flying fucks about anyone else around them and smash up our towns and cities when intoxicated; find help for victims of alcohol abuse before they fall into an A&E ward; encourage respect for alcohol, respect for the communities we live in and appreciation of the slog, the climb, the rewards of life rather than the quick fix, the instant gratification, the I-want-I-get attitude that underpins society today.

How do we, as a country do that? If I knew I’d be Prime Minister, or the next famous philosopher or anthropologist. But for a start, try being honest about alcohol rather than spinning data into PR-able facts. Be open about alcohol, don’t hide it behind closed doors. If I’m getting really adventurous I’d say let’s spread altruism across our schools and teach our children that they will be rewarded for helping others not punching others. Let’s nip anti-social tendencies and prejudice in the bud early on and encouraging people from a younger age to have a broader ‘group’ mentality. My youthful visions of utopia might not be realistic, but where else do we start?

And start by trawling our blog roll for blogs that have written superb words on the subject this week too…

¹ Me included.
² As an example, BrewDog Tokyo* on which you can find multiple online sources of ridiculous outrage at this beer and it’s potential to either cure binge drinking  or cause a beer based apocalypse, depending on your bias…I mean point of view.
³ Branding the whole industry as irresponsible is a bit harsh, many other sources I’ve read have made clearer distinctions.
⁴ I refer mainly to discussions with drinkers, beer bloggers and friends who feel like they have already adopted a responsible approach to drinking and that policies seem to neglect that and penalise their drinking habits with little effect on the problems they set out to solve (e.g. increasing taxes).
⁵ Such as this reported today in The Times and other media publishers
^{6, 7, 8 and 9} Seen them all done.
¹⁰ That’s my opinion, based on my growing up and drinking experience in Banbury, Lincoln, Nottingham, Leeds & more (and isn’t restricted to young people)
¹¹ That’s a fact that doesn’t require a footnote and I’ll retract it statement if anyone can argue it’s not true.
¹² Which I thoroughly intend to pay him after pay day!
¹³ I refer here to Melissa Cole here who I trust!
¹⁴ Read any newspapers websites over the last three months and the same article and stats are reported verbatim with little or no questioning. And I will blog on my digital marketing blog about this worrying trend in the next few days at http://digitalmediamonkey.co.uk