Confounding Iain Duncan Smith

Now then,

        recently the 3 main political parties seem to have been simultaneously battling for and railing foolishly  against beer and its place in society. While Chuka Umunna and Greg Mulholland were tweeting about the positive statements made in the parliamentary beer duty debate, Tyson posted here regarding Diane Abbot's ill informed out pourings about pubs and drinking, and lovable out of touch toff Iain Duncan Smith made "an hilarious" joke cum simile when he claimed "Labour wasted money like drunks on a Friday night".

Oh, stop it. The thing is Duncypops, we proles don't, for the most part, have bars selling discounted real ales at work, and so usually end up drinking after we finish toiling, usually on Friday and Saturday nights. And not out of choice but necessity, since we have to be up early for work during the week. So there.
 

Of course, the only effective way to fight ignorance like this is to prove the Quiet Man wrong. So, I subjected myself to a midweek tipple after work, just to spite him. See how you like this tale of recklessness, Iain Bunkum Smith! (do you see what I did there? I simultaneously implied that what he was saying was bunkum, i.e. rubbish, whilst changing his initials to IBS, also known as Irritable Bowel Syndrome. He'd do well to learn from my wordsmithery, am sure you'd agree...)
 

But I digress.

Myself and Mr P started our night of subtle protest at the University Arms. From a decent range Mr P sensibly had a pint of the lower gravity Acorn Thirst Degree, whilst I had a pint of the Abbeydale Dr Morton's Anti Freeze. Another cracking Dr Morton offering, although one worries that these may soon supersede the core range in terns of market appeal and product desirability.

I also squeezed in a half of Vigilante Brewing Chocolate Strike, which one assumes isn't a euphemism, but is undoubtedly a very nicely balanced chocolate stout, with plenty of bitterness to counteract the unfortunate and unavoidable sweetness. Very nice.

Off next to the Bath Hotel where Steph was holding the reigns, and where Mr P had a pint of Thornbridge Warp and I tried a pint of the excellent Red Willow Heartless (which I'd sampled Saturday) along with the last of the Fathomless oyster stout. The Heartless is an excellent chocolate Stout, better even than the earlier lauded merits of the Vigilante offering. Made with 85% cacoa Colombian chocolate its a hugely tasty and satisfying drink which manages to pack in masses of flavour without becoming cloying.
 

Harrisons 1854 was our next stop, if nothing else so that Mr P could get to meet Bob, who he figured he may well know or at least know of from his ties with the world of engineering. One pint of Farmers Blonde (alas the Deception wasn't on) for me and a pint of Moonshine for Mr P later and we were clear on many things, including the fact that the beers were on good form, and Mr P did indeed recognise Bob from somewhere. The shrinking world of Sheffield encroaches ever further...
 

Our final (and my penultimate) stop was at the Red Deer where I can't recall Mr P's choice, but I had a pint of the Caledonian Double Dark. Trying it outside the comfort of its spiritual home at the Church House I am pleased to report that it was once again excellent.
 

My final stop after Mr P had reached his limit was DAda, where Ems and Annie were on hand to dispense beer and conversation Io a painfully quiet (well, I say painfully, but joyously so for me) venue. I had a pint of the excellent Amber Ales Derbyshire Gold and a half of Chiron to finish off before wending my way home for some food and a bit of telly.

 

In the end, I concede this exercise has probably had little impact on the life that Iain Duncan Smith lives in his privileged bubble, but I was once again contributing to the Drinkuary campaign. And, in my own small misunderstood way, quietly raising two fingers to the naysayers of wonderful British beer.

 

Cheers!
 

Imaginary 2.8% beers

Hello,

    back in January I noted a beer tasting session in Parliament for MP's to sample some of the 'brave new world' of exciting lower strength beers.

It didn't seem that strange - after all, it was obvious that the punitive HSBD fiasco would frighten a few brewers (and likely many more punters) off strong beer and that the ever so begrudging reward of a duty cut on very low strength beers would spurr some brewers into brewing said products. No-one seemed very sure or willing to provide evidence of the level of this impact though.

Much was made of the innovations that the great magnanimous brewing family had utilised to create a whole range of exciting new beers at 2.8% or below. The scene was set to see what this new breed of ale was about, and, best of all, to make an informed judgement about whether the brewers claims held any credibility.

Well, its April now, and even though lower strength beers may be aimed squarely at a "Summer" market (don't forget we just had it!) it would surely be the case that Brewers were already rolling out their new array of ultra weak ales, which they had since well before the duty imposition in October to create.

I am not saying that no such beers have evolved in that time - as clearly shown by the Beer Today blog I linked at the time, there were quite a few beers from a number of (albeit mainly larger brewers) offered for sale. Yet, I haven#t seen any. And interestingly, there hasn't exactly been any response, commercial or publicity wise, from brewers that, erm, well, you kind of like and respect. Thornbridge dallied with a series of low gravity beers a few years ago but I got the impression they were just experimental excercises in brewing. BrewDog did nanny state, which was a hugely unpleasant beer, now of course not to be seen in cask form.

But that's it.

Good, innovative and respected micro's like Magic Rock, Summer Wine Brewery, Brodies beers, Hawkshead, Ilkley, Dark Star and Red Willow have all done lower gravity beers, but all around the kind of acceptable established cut off point of 3.5%. This weekend I had a bottle of the Ilkley Mary Jane at that strength - it was very nice, but as with all such offerings, I found myself wooed principally by the flavours that I hadn't expected, in a beer that I attributed the oft used description "impressive for its strength".

So, one wonders,  where are these amazing new beers? I have seen one 2.8% beer. It was rubbish. I would desperately like to try a few and roll my beer drinkers palate over them all to pick out the flavours and characteristics present in such a beer but I have never seen one other than that I tried once in the Shakespeare.

Maybe I only drink in pubs that sell exclusively micro brewery output, and the weak beers are all made by nationals and mega regionals - perhaps because I buy almost all my bottled beer from Asda, who never change thier beer range more than once a year I am missing out on the bottled 2.8% offerings?

Whatever the explanation though, I stilll haven't seen any.

Which suggests there is a very real chance that the Government will oversee a minimum pricing policy that will do nothing to improve the plight of the British pub, further tax hikes that see us the most punished drinkers in Europe, a nonsensical tax hike on stronger and usually more interesting brews that punishes those with an interest in aged or imperial/export beer styles, and has offset this dire situation with an idiotic plan to reward brewers that make beers that no-one makes, no-one drinks and seemingly, no-one can find!

Has anyone seen a 2.8% or lower real ale, anywhere? And if so, what was it like? Please let me know what you thought - lets see if we have just transferred rarely brewed luncheon ales or light ales from dark bottle shelves to cask, or whether as predicted by CAMRA, and the mega brewers, sub 2.8 really is the way forward...

Wee Beefy.

40 pence per soundbite

Hello,

  it seems like harvesting the above tax could raise the treasury some much needed money if it had thought to impose this duty from 11.00AM this morning. Mind you, I am not very good at harvesting soundbites, much like the HMRC are pretty rubbish at collecting taxes, most especially from the twats at the top who have most to gain from them not doing so.

I was still digesting the details of the ghost 5% tax rise that many fell for, of course the beer duty escalator was already running prior to budget day allowing Osborne the chance to pretend nothing was happening. Then, having got nowhere with understanding how much this would add to the price of a pint over the bar (any figure rarely reflects the cost at the pumps, for no doubt innumerable reasons), I heard that the Government had announced in Parliament sleepy time that they were going to be proposing, as part of its alcohol strategy, a 40 pence minimum price per unit on alcohol.

Now, I get that you already know the above, but remembering that I can't be arsed finding quotes, this is what struck me :

1. Recently, I've noted stories about the drinking habits of the middle class and the go-getters in the employment market, letting go of all their day's stress by binging after work. As Professor Sir Ian Gilmore points out reassuringly from his bubble, this (minmum unit price) won't affect the cost of beer in a pub, or the cost of a bottle of wine in a restaurant. (UNQ) Does this mean the above sector isn't that much of a problem? If so, where is the problem drinking sector then? If its not the above, it must be the poorest in society? If, even, there is a specific problem sector? (clearly its too easy to generalise when patching together a strategy.....)

2. Cameron said it was ridiculous that you could get a can of lager for 25p and a large bottle of super strength cider for £2.00. (UNQ)

And that is quite shocking. I mean, what goes in to drinks like that to be that cheap? (just skip past "Indian cola" and cheap Chinese soy sauce). The thing that's worrying here is that at no stage has he considered why someone would be buying such products, especially if they were off out later?

Perhaps, the fact that in the pub across from this made up supermarket its £3.50 a pint for cider (if you're lucky), over £3.00 for a pint of lager. No-one wants the pubs in town centres and elsewhere to be filled up with more out of control drinkers,  (I can see this is a tightrope!)  but unsupervised drinking can only be achived by off sales purchases. In some cases, you'd have to argue that City Centres would be Ghost towns without the opportunity to preload - surely they can't be after the affluent City Centre money pots as well?

3. The home Secretary said :
that just under the cheapest fifth of all alcohol sold would be affected by introducing a 40p minimum.

"Too many people think it's a great night out to get really drunk and have a fight in our streets," she told BBC Breakfast.

"What we need to do is to set a price that is actually going to ensure that we don't damage responsible drinkers. People who like a drink or two, who like going down their local pub, have nothing to fear from this policy."

Erm.....?

Coming on the back of HSBD, the smoking ban, a failure to act on pub companies, and two days after the year on year tax rises bequeathed by the tax escalator, one wonders where these pubs are?

They still exist, but there are many less local pubs than when we had less disposable income. So something is making our pubs die, which is unconnected to the unit price of alcohol. Ironically, when the above factors serve to erode away the core traditional trade in such establishments, many can only remain open as late night venues with attractive one price entry promotions and cheap shots. (its childish, I know, but I mis-typed this as cheap shits. And then chuckled to myself. I am 5.)

Also, re the above statement, who is it that the experts think is directly responsible for a person's assumption or belief that its alright to go out and get drunk and have a fight in the streets? Erm, individuals? Is it that setting the limit at 39p wouldn't change the decision structure of people unable to control their urge to fight but 40p would?

I have seen many reformed alcoholics today interviewed about the minimum price declaring that it would have made no difference at all to them in their previous situation. So if the Government think that almost all of us abuse alcohol, that would maybe still apply - all of us would still strive to find booze no matter what the price ( I realise this is a lightly absurd notion but you have to apply these ideas rigidly otherwise they lose credibility....)

Irrespective of price, if I go out and have quite a lot to drink I may become argumentative. In the sort of pubs I frequent that stimulates debate. I don't hit people. I don't fight or start fights. I might be pedantic about pronunciation of certain words, and I concede, publicly, that this is quite annoying. I may also shout at train or bus timetables, but fighting is for idiots. So can I be exempt from  minimum pricing? Surely nothing I do is a taxable crime as defined in the rambling remit of this rashly rushed proposal?

Finally, results seem to show that disposable income is up and beer is cheaper now as a percentage of average income compared to 1980. Well that's great. But I'd be more interested to be shown evidence of how the price of a pint in a pub has risen against the cost in a supermarket and how those two, I suspect radically different figures measure up against a percentage of household income. If, and I dearly hope this stat is correct, we are paying 40% of all the beer duty in Europe but consuming only 13% of all the beer drunk in Europe, then that would show that successive Governments have allowed tax over the bar to escalate, and tax for alcohol at the checkout stay low or maybe become lower.Which is their fault! Ha Ha!

In which case, we're back to why not make social supervised drinking affordable? Wibble?


The above quotes were sort of in some cases taken from the BBC News website here . I had to half remember Professor Sir Ian Gilmore's quote from 3 different interviews, hence its an unquote.

If this post has made you depressed, why not compare the different news channels envisaged cost increases on a variety of "popular alcoholic products"?

Or just pour yourself a bottle of slightly chilled Bottle conditioned IPA and stay indoors where its safe.

Wee Beefy