STILL ROCKING AND STILL GREAT

People are eager to see legendary rocker Joe Brown each time he vists Skegness because they know they are in for a special treat from one of the best in the business who speaks for a generation and reaches out to new and younger audiences that discover him each year.

Joe has been in the music business for 50 years and many of those have seen him return to Skegness. A former Butlins Redcoat, he began his career in Filey, and has played Skegness many times as a professional artist.

“I have seen quite a few changes in Skegness over the years and I’ve played here about 20 times in those years,” Joe said.

“We mostly do theatres now and the idea is to put on a good show. We play to packed houses. The great thing about that is that people come back because they liked the show before and not because we have done any particular promotion on TV or anywhere else to draw them in.”

With a gruelling tour ahead, some might think that at almost 70 years old, Joe deserves a break and time to put his feet up but he admits that his greatest motivating factor to keep on touring is the fact that he loves what he does.

“You can’t go out on stage if you don’t enjoy it and then expect the audience to enjoy it too,” he said.

“There are people who do go out there and do their act, and then go out and do their act and keep on doing it. It could be fabulous but it’s still doing the same act and they are doing the same thing. I don’t like that. We don’t put on an act, we put on a show and we change it every time we go out because people who come like to see new stuff and we know from experience what they like and what they don’t.”

Joe is from the first generation of teenagers who had their own music, fashion and point of view. As a young man, getting his first gig at 16, the war was not far behind and rations had only just ended. Skiffle was the first sound they could call their own.

Anyone with a modicum of talent chucked out the three chord tunes, they danced to the likes of Lonnie Donnegan, and they all thought they could be the next somebody. Then two years down the line, rock and roll, Elvis, and then the Beatles and the Shadows changed youth music forever. Joe is part of that young revolution and he inspires the youth of today.

“I think when the young ones come to the show the first time they are dragged by their parents - but then they come back time and again of their own accord so we must be doing something right,” he said.

With such a long and illustrious career behind him, Joe says there are far too many exciting highlights in his career including playing at George Harrison’s memorial gig, to name just one, but he knows for sure the one thing he hasn’t done that he'd like to do before he hangs up his guitar.

“I’d love to write just one song and then live off the Royalties like some other great artists and songwriters do,” he said.

But then Joe Brown might retire, stop doing what he loves best, and deprive audiences of one of the best live shows they will ever see and experience.

Joe plays tonight at the Embassy Theatre Skegness at 7.30pm.
See here for more UK tour dates

VOTE UKIP - SAVE BRITAIN

Lincoln and Gainsborough UKIP members were invited to a social and recruitment evening organised by the landlord of the Turnor Arms in Wragby.

The line up I manged to shoot (with the camera of course) included Nick Smith the chairman and UKIP Parliamentary candidate for Lincoln during the last general election, and Tony Wells who stood for Sleaford and North Hykeham last May.

They will be both be standing as local candidates along with others in the photo including yours truly. I got the last of my nomination signatures today and so campaiging will now begin in earnest. We will be setting up stalls in town and knocking on doors telling people what UKIP is about over the next few weeks.

But it can be summed up in one phrase : Vote UKIP - Save Britain. UKIP is the only non-racist, common sense, pragmatic, fair, and meaningful alternative to the current LibLabCon which is killing our culture, heritage, national identity, and notions of tolerance and fair play.

For those still to be persuaded that UKIP can handle the economy, they only need look at what the NuConservatives are doing to see that they are stealing UKIP policies and passing them off as their own - including combining NI and income tax into one deduction from pay slips.

UKIP is the party of the people for the people so vote UKIP in May if only to tell the other three that enough is enough. Voting UKIP means your vote might actually change something.

BLOGGING ABSENCE

A lack of blogging over the last couple of weeks has been down to being too busy at work and completely frazzled and knackered by the time I get home. Added to that has been an irritating pain in my right elbow which I've put down to repetitive strain injury from using the laptop too much.

Using the computer mouse doesn't appear to result in the same burning, aching pain - although it doesn't appear to ease the problem either. Perhaps they should ban laptops for our own good. But then maybe I shouldn't be giving them ideas for more prohibition.

Life in the real, as opposed to the virtual, world has been different. I've been trying to reach smokers who are not online by giving out Resistance stickers. Most have taken them with interest. A couple have refused. I found that odd. Those stickers I placed on smoker bins in Skegness have stayed. Those I've posted in Lincoln have disappeared. I have none left now that I'm working in Louth so I just talk with the smokers who share the same bench in the Market Place at lunchtime.

One my jobs was to work on a story from the British Beer and Pub Association about the beer tax hike which the organisation says will lead to the loss of 10,000 jobs in the industry and many more pub closures. I spoke to a local on site brewer landlord, who has opened his own independent pub, and a fourth generation local brewer for their views. Both agreed the tax would be disastrous. I couldn't avoid asking them how they felt about the smoking ban.

The pub landlord - who is a supporter of choice - says that his choice, even without the ban, would be non-smoking for practical business reasons. : "75% of people don't smoke so it makes sense to have a non-smoking pub for the majority of customers," he said. I never asked whether he would think it worth it if he could offer separate facilities to attract 100% of customers. This man was not, incidentally, an anti-smoker by any means.

The fourth generation brewer's view was that there were too many pubs before 2007 and so some had to go and the nature of pub going had changed. She said "families don't want to be smoked out anymore." She had business in London, lived in London, and so I guessed it was a Metropolitan view and not one familiar to the majority of small local communities that this brewer's pubs serve.

Another pub landlord - a never smoker - in a historic small town was just as angry as smokers about the ban. He said if there were three pubs in a village, then two of them should be smoking and one non-smoking. I pointed out that the majority customer was non-smoking but he believed that the majority of non-smokers don't visit pubs. The majority of smokers do. He said that was evidenced by the rapid rate of pub closures after the ban when the imaginary non-smokers failed to pack pubs in smokers' places as was promised by the anti-smoking industry.

In my blogging absence, I've also watched a fair bit of TV. I like Waking the Dead on Sunday and Monday - which could be an apt description of what UKIP is trying to do in NuBritain - but then I am a sucker for a good crime drama. I love and hate Thursday nights which is my sweary night. I don't know if my other half is more interested in the political programmes I watch - like 10 O'clock Live, Question Time or This Week - or amused by the amount of times I shout "fuck off, get to fuck, fucking knob," at some sanctimonious or misleading politician.

I did enjoy "watching Nigel Farage on 10 O'clock Live the other week. He makes me smile not swear. The link begins with irritating adverts you can't move on but when the programme starts, go about 17 minutes in to watch Farage's performance.

It looks like I'll be swamped with work for the next couple of weeks at least which means I won't get time to see my GP about my elbow which isn't getting any better. I guess that means light blogging may continue for a while longer.

More beer watering

I was disappointed to learn that Batemans are to cut the strength of their flagship XXXB premium bitter from 4.8% ABV to 4.5%. A Batemans spokeswoman is reported as saying that pub operators were increasingly resistant to taking stronger beers. That is undoubtedly true, and you can’t really blame Batemans for taking that step. I’ve mentioned before how it’s becomingly increasingly rare to find cask beers above 4.5% outside specialist beer pubs. So often now you see a list of forthcoming guest beers in pubs that cluster thickly between 3.7% and 4.3%.

XXXB is (or was) a classic English strong bitter, robust, full-bodied and malty but at the same time dry and with a distinct hop character. Hopefully the bottled version will stay at 4.8% and add to the growing trend of bottled beers being stronger than their cask equivalents.

Crying over spilt beer

Anyone reading this blog will quickly realise that I am not the greatest fan of the smoking ban. But, on the other hand, if you are running a pub or a brewery, you would be foolish to base your business plans on an assumption it may be repealed or relaxed in the next few years.

Equally, I am strongly, indeed viscerally, opposed to the current alcohol duty regime, in particular the “duty escalator”. It penalises responsible drinkers, closes pubs and encourages smuggling while doing nothing to curb problem drinking and indeed not even being effective in maximising government revenue. But, given the current level of anti-drink hysteria in the political sphere, realistically the prospect of removing the escalator, let alone any actual cut, is extremely remote.

Before the Budget, various parts of the drinks industry mounted a concerted and heartfelt campaign to get the government to think again, most notably SIBA’s Proud of British Beer video, but it all fell on deaf ears.

So, in your business plans, it makes sense to assume that the alcohol duty escalator will stay in place at least until 2014. The first realistic opportunity for it to be abandoned is in the pre-election Budget of March 2015.

Hardknott Dave makes a very good argument that, in the current climate, it makes sense for craft brewers to concentrate on quality rather than volume. A high tax regime increases the leverage exercised by quality. As often said in relation to wine, every bottle carries the same level of duty, so the differential between the £6 bottle and the £4 bottle is entirely (apart from the additional VAT) accounted for by higher quality.

'Baccy for the clerk

The other night, I picked up a beermat in the pub asking the question “Why is illegal tobacco so easy to get hold of?” I would have thought that qualified as an entry-level question for a CSE in the Bleeding Obvious, but on the reverse it says “More and more criminals see it as an easy way to make some cash. But what else are they selling?” Cheap imported booze, hopefully.

It’s now reckoned that between 33 and 40% of all tobacco products sold in the UK are either smuggled or legal personal imports. Raising tobacco duty by 50p for a pack of 20 is only likely to increase that percentage, and potentially lead to less government revenue. Extortionate duty encourages smuggling as surely as night follows day. How many people now would feel any sense of moral outrage about tobacco smuggling? As Kipling wrote:

Five and twenty ponies trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie -
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by !

Neither seen nor heard

Following my rant here, I started a poll asking the question “Should children be barred from drinking areas of pubs?” There were 92 responses, broken down as follows:

Yes: 57 (62%)
No: 35 (38%)

So roughly a 3:2 split there. Bear in mind that the poll was purely referring to drinking areas – the issue of children in dining areas, where their presence is arguably more legitimate, is a rather different one. It remains my view that the widespread admittance of children to bar areas of pubs is a major deterrent to adult pubgoers – it only takes one bad experience to put you off from going somewhere ever again. But, of course, if you complain about it, you will be painted as a evil child-hating bastard.

Gross profiteering

The duty increases announced in this week’s Budget would result in an increase in the price of a typical pint of beer in the pub of about 4p, once VAT was added on to the additional duty. However, it’s been widely claimed that this is likely to lead to an increase of more like 10p in the price of a pint passing across the bar. Hang on, you might say, doesn’t that mean that licensees and pub companies are profiteering?

Well, maybe they are, and maybe they aren’t. The reason for this is that pubs typically look at “percentage gross profit” when assessing their financial viability. The pub will seek to maintain a fixed percentage, usually at least 50%, between what they pay for their beer and other drinks, and what they sell it for. This has to cover overheads and staff wages as well as the licensee’s own share. Obviously, over time, overheads and staff wages tend to go up roughly in line with the overall rate of inflation, so you have to increase the amount added on to the cost of beer to cover that. And, if you don’t maintain the %GP, over time inflation will steadily erode the licensee’s income in real terms.

Clearly, on Day 1 after the price increase, if the licensee maintains the same %GP, he will be raking in more money than he was before, assuming that sales do not fall. But, over time, all that it doing is compensating for the rise in other costs the pub pays, and maintaining the real value of the licensee’s income. So far, so good. It all makes sense, and nobody is profiteering or cheating the customer.

However, as any economist will tell you, in a competitive market, pricing isn’t simply a question of adding a fixed percentage to cost, it also needs to take into account what customers are able and willing to pay. Over the years, in maintaining their %GP, pubs have slowly seen the prices they charge increase over and above the general level of inflation, and above the prices charged by the off-trade and other competitors for the leisure pound. What seems a sensible idea in the short-term is, in the longer run, seriously detrimental to trade.

Then Wetherspoons have come along and smashed the old cosy model by adopting a “pile it high and sell it cheap” approach that deliberately sacrifices some margin for higher volumes. Nowadays, if you run a traditional leased or tenanted pub within a competitive radius of a Spoons, you haven’t a hope in hell of competing on price.

Now, I’m not suggesting that licensees’ incomes are generally too high, or that crude price-cutting is a good strategy for pubs. But, in recent years, the pub trade hasn’t been helped by adopting a lazy and complacent pricing model that ignores market realities. If they are to succeed in future, pubs will have to look at a more sophisticated, flexible and market-sensitive approach to pricing rather than just simplistically banging on a fixed percentage of the cost of beer.

I also often think there is more pubs could do through pricing to stimulate customer interest, such as, say:

- each week, selling one of its regular draught beers (including kegs) for 50p off
- having a discounted “wine of the week” or “malt whisky of the week”
- having a permanent house beer of cooking strength from a local brewery at a significantly lower price than other beers

Many promotional techniques that are commonplace in other retail businesses seem to be largely absent from pubs.

Still too many pubs?

Drinks journalist Andrew Pring has controversially claimed that, despite the closures of recent years, Britain still has far too many pubs and about a quarter of those that remain are fundamentally unviable.

He said: “We will still lose many thousands of pubs, regardless of what the government does. We are an over-pubbed nation. The pub’s USP has long since disappeared. All the technological developments have worked to the detriment of the pub. There is a whole generation who have grown up who don’t see the pub as a place to socialise.”

And, sad to say, he’s probably right, although of course it could equally be presented as a lack of pubgoers, not a surfeit of pubs. If supply exceeds demand, the imbalance can only be resolved in one of two ways.

The crisis of the pub trade is often presented, not least by Mike Benner in the linked article, as essentially a crisis of supply, caused by evil grasping pub companies, high-handed council planners and restrictive covenants. As one commenter says, “A free of tie option with open market rent for almost 2/3’s of all the pubs in the country will allow the feathers of the sector to regrow and stand a chance of flying again.”

However, surely in reality the problem is that at present there simply isn’t sufficient demand to sustain the existing pub stock, and nobody explains how supply-side improvements would magically increase demand by 25%. I would say that a good quarter – maybe even a third – of the currently trading pubs in areas I’m familiar with are not viable in the long term.

Less can mean more

There will be plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the pub and beer community over the lack of any concessions in today’s Budget but, to be honest, did anyone really expect anything different? Not only is beer duty to rise by 2% above the rate of inflation, but, as widely trailed, an additional 25% duty is to be introduced on beers above 7.5% ABV. This will mean that a 500ml can of 9% beer will incur additional duty (plus VAT) of 25p. It remains to be seen to what extent brewers of beers in this category will seek to reformulate their products to bring them down under the threshold – but I would expect an extra £1 on a four-pack to make this very likely.

To a large extent, this is pointless gesture politics, as beers over 7.5% make up only about 1% of the total beer market, and a negligible proportion of beer sold on draught. However, it’s entirely possible it may end up having the reverse of the intended effect. Most of the beer in this category is the super-strength lagers such as Carlsberg Special Brew and Tennents Super. These brews tend to be unpleasantly syrupy in character and aren’t really something anyone would want to drink unless inebriation is the primary objective. But it’s much easier to brew a strong lager at 7.5% that is also reasonably palatable. It’s widely recognised that the 7.2% Carlsberg Elephant Beer is a far better and more drinkable beer than Special Brew. So we could end up with a situation where these beers are reduced in strength and as a result gain a wider appeal, which no doubt isn’t exactly what the advocates of the tax rise intended.

Incidentally, while these beers are often characterised as “tramp juice”, bear in mind that they are on sale not just in seedy street-corner shops but also in major supermarkets, who often even have their own branded versions, and regularly appear in the Top 20 of take-home beer brands, suggesting that in reality they have a much broader and more respectable customer base.

Decline of the Gin and Jag Belt

An issue confronting the compilers of pub guides in the early 1980s was how to identify pubs with an “up-market” clientele, and, without seeming too dismissive, send out a signal that the corduroy-clad beer buff might not find himself entirely at home. Back then, this particular strand of customers formed a significant part of the trade of many pubs. Standing at or around the bar clutching a dimpled pint pot was their characteristic pose.

I vividly recall a couple of occasions in the 1980s when I and my drinking companion(s) found ourselves in Cheshire pubs amidst a group of the solid middle classes clad in slacks and golfing jumpers enjoying a pre-prandial snifter and volubly discussing skiing holidays, school fees and the latest German premium car models.

But one thing that has been very noticeable about the way pubs have changed over the past twenty years is how this segment of clientele, while not disappearing entirely, has greatly declined. The middle classes continue to enthusiastically dine in pubs – just try any outlet of the Brunning & Price chain, or read the Good Pub Guide – but it’s less and less common to find them engaged in social drinking in pubs. North Cheshire is famed for its “stockbroker belt” stretching from Prestbury through Alderley Edge and Wilmslow to Hale and Bowdon, but across that swathe of country you would be hard pressed now to find any upmarket drinkers’ pubs. I get the impression that they increasingly socialise in each others’ houses. The picture shows the former Bleeding Wolf in leafy Hale, long since closed and converted to flats.

Market failure?

In the past, I’ve sometimes heard the view expressed that, if a market economy functions efficiently, there should be no need for consumer pressure groups like CAMRA. There’s an example here in a comment on one of my Opening Times columns.

Tim Worstall makes an interesting post addressing this point, arguing that, far from being a sign of market failure, the presence of pressure groups is an integral part of the efficient functioning of markets:

And thus, far from CAMRA (or any other such voluntary organisation or banding together) being something which should be unnecessary in a market economy, they are exactly the manner in which a market economy works: voluntary, not directed, cooperation to achieve the desired goal(s). That spontaneous order coming from the application of the innate human abilities to use agency and cooperation to achieve a collective desire.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, business was much more in the grip of a corporatist viewpoint and took the view that standardisation and economies of scale were desirable and, to a large extent, customers should be “sold” what the company was willing to make. In this situation it made sense to band together in a pressure group to demonstrate to suppliers that there was a demand for a particular product*.

Nowadays, in the age of niche marketing, mass customisation and the “long tail”, things are very different. Today it could be said to a much greater extent that the presence or absence of real ale in a pub accurately reflects the market demand and is not an imposition from on high. Some pubs have it; others don’t, and it should be fairly straightforward to establish whether it brings any benefit to trade.

Edit: there's another post on this subject on the Left Outside blog entitled The Campaign for Real Ale; Capitalist or Not?

* in fact, I get the impression that, while CAMRA undoubtedly brought things together in the early 1970s, there were already clear signs of consumer dissatisfaction with keg beers in the marketplace.

Another sigh of relief

Although it was widely signalled in advance, it is still good news for pubs and pubgoers that the government has decided not to reduce the British drink-driving limit from 80mg to 50mg, as recommended last year by Sir Peter North’s review. Their response contains a detailed examination of the potential effect on the licensed trade – something that North signally failed to carry out – and says “It is possible, on some assumptions that limited safety benefits might be at a high economic cost.”

It also points out that the overwhelming majority of drink-related casualties involve drivers who are well over the current limit, and it is difficult to forecast accurately what effect, if any, reducing the limit would have on those in this category. The document says:

Of the total reported road accident fatalities in Great Britain in 2008, where a BAC was recorded, 78% of fatalities were below 80 mg/100ml (the legal alcohol limit). Within the total, 76% of fatalities had a BAC below 51mg/100ml; while 2% were between 51 and 80 mg/100ml. Over a fifth of fatalities (22%) were over the prescribed limit and 21% were over 100mg /100ml.

- which suggests that disproportionate accident involvement only really begins at levels above 100mg, and certainly not below 80mg. Let us hope now that the issue will be laid to rest at least for the length of the current Parliament.

As I have argued before, substantial sections of the driving population are now disinclined to drink any alcohol immediately before driving (although they may have fewer compunctions about “the morning after”) and so it could be said that many of the claimed safety benefits of a lower limit have already been gained anyway.

Saturday lunchtime special

Last night, we had a CAMRA pub crawl, and one of the participants was a retired gent who said that his normal mode of pubgoing was on his own with the paper. Snap. Exactly the same applies to me. Being someone who still works during the week, the principal times when I am able to explore pubs are Saturday and Sunday lunchtimes. And, all too often, I find that Andy and Denise have decided to bring little Jake and Ellie along to the pub. Quite frankly I am getting fed up to the back teeth with it.

I have no problem with dining pubs admitting children to eating areas. But if I’m in a wet-led pub hoping to have a quiet drink, the last thing I want is howling, wailing brats running around. I really wonder whether I should just give up and stay at home with a nice bottle or two. Admitting children is often presented as “the future of the pub”, but I reckon it’s killing it.

Back to the future

I've recently been running a poll asking the question “In which year would you have most liked to be a beer drinker and pubgoer in the UK?” The thinking behind this is explained here. There were an impressive 159 responses, beating the record set by the drink-drive limit poll, broken down as follows:

1951: 17 (11%)
1961: 23 (14%)
1971: 21 (13%)
1981: 20 (13%)
1991: 19 (12%)
2001: 10 (6%)
2011: 49 (31%)

Not surprisingly, the biggest single vote, just under a third, was for the present day. As I said in the comments to the original post, this is quite understandable, as from a narrow point of view the range and quality of beer available in pubs is better than ever before, as are the top end of pubs in a more general sense. However, given the way in which the pub trade has contracted and come under increasing assault from the anti-drink lobby, to my mind that is a somewhat blinkered and parochial viewpoint. It remains to be seen how long beer enthusiasm can continue unscathed by neo-Prohibitionism. I suspect the first crack in the edifice will come on Wednesday next week when Osborne imposes a punitive tax on beers over 7.5% ABV.

Votes were fairly evenly spread over the other years, with, somewhat surprisingly, 2001 recording the lowest total. Personally my vote went to 1981 – perhaps not unexpectedly as that was the first year in the series when I was actually a pub customer, and people very often look back on the days of their youth with enthusiasm. All-day opening was still to come, but what you didn’t have, you didn’t miss. The period since about 1974 had seen a huge expansion in the availability and profile of cask beer (if not in total sales) and we were only just after the all-time peak of beer sales in pubs. Food in pubs had also hugely improved over the past decade. I’m convinced that 1970-80 was when the real pub food revolution took place. Many pubs that have since been wrecked by refurbishment were still in their original state, and there was still a sense of serendipity about pubgoing – pubs, in general, had not yet become self-conscious in their appeal to particular market segments. In different parts of the country you would get a totally different selection of beers.

1961, which was the overall runner-up, also has a lot of appeal as pubs then would have seen a great improvement since 1951, but most of the old breweries of the pre-merger era would still have been in operation. Plus the breathalyser was still six years off. However, from a present-day point of view pubs might have been unwelcoming to casual customers and I suspect what food there was would have been a bit grim.

1991 had the benefit of all-day opening, although few pubs were yet doing much to take advantage of it, plus the rise of the first wave of micro-breweries, but by then some of the sense of innocence and discovery had been lost and the “lager lout” hysteria presaged the beginning of the anti-drink campaign. I still can’t see the advantage of 1971 over either 1961 or 1981, as you have experienced the 1960s takeover mania and the rise of keg beer, while the expansion of real ale availability in the second half of the 1970s was still to come. All the same, a lot of people voted for it.

The one thing that really sticks in my mind from 1981 is just how busy pubs were then, for so much of the time they were open.

Poll of polls

Any suggestions from the readership for polls that you’d like to see on here in the future?

The full eighty bob

Ten or more years ago, beers from the Caledonian Brewery in Edinburgh were a common sight in the off-trade. More recently, they seem to have largely disappeared, at least around here, so I was pleasantly surprised to see both Deuchars IPA and 80/- on sale in my local convenience store, of all places, albeit at a rather steep price of £1.95 per bottle or £5 for 3. (A few years ago they did briefly have Deuchars in cans)

Caledonian 80/- (shown just as “80” on the label) is probably now the definitive remaining example of the rich, malty Scottish 80/- style. It’s a deep mahogany colour with a moderate but lasting white head. Malt of course dominates the flavour, but it’s fairly dry and there’s a subdued spicy hoppiness in there too. It has a full mouthfeel and a soft, restrained carbonation. The distinctive Caledonian house character, with a creamy texture and notes of caramel and vanilla, is very much in evidence. Perhaps more than any other established brewery, all of Caledonian’s beers have an instantly recognisable common character which I believe derives from caramelisation of sugar in the brewery’s unique open-fired coppers.

In summary, an excellent, well-made classic beer which effectively defines its style and makes an ideal antidote to the modern wave of pale “tropical fruit” hoppy ales.

An undiluted success?

Today, the Campaign for Real Ale celebrates its fortieth anniversary. There can be no doubt that during its lifetime CAMRA has played a central role in promoting the appreciation of beer in Britain, and of ensuring real ale remains a widely-available, mass-market drink not just confined to a handful of specialist outlets. Here is an article I wrote six years ago reviewing CAMRA’s achievements.

However, there is an important piece of context that needs to be added. You sometimes read (although not, to be fair, in CAMRA’s press release) that the organisation’s campaigning led to a huge upsurge in real ale sales. In fact, the amount of real ale sold in Britain today is probably less than a fifth of that in 1971 when it was founded. The main reasons for this are the rise in lager from about 5% of draught beer in 1971 to two-thirds today, and the steady decline in on-trade beer drinking.

While real ale was hard to find in London and much of the South-East in 1971, it was still widely available in other parts of the country. Just think of the extensive tied estates owned by the likes of Wolves & Dudley, Home and the six (then) Greater Manchester family brewers, all overwhelmingly selling real ale in far greater volumes than today. Plus there were still large real ale bastions in the hands of the “Big Six” such as Tetley in Yorkshire, Bass in the Midlands and Courage across a wide swathe of the South and South-West.

From a London-centric point of view, the 1970s did indeed see a boom in real ale sales. But, across the country, there will have been very few, if any, years since 1971 that saw an absolute increase in volume sales.

ANOTHER RATIONAL VIEW

Is there something in the water? Health professional Dr Helen Evans, director of Nurses for Reform, has come out and said what we smokers have said for years and one can only hope this time someone listens.

Her piece :A bridge too far: why banning tobacco displays means the Coalition is sleep walking into a sea of illicit tobacco, criminality and more smokers

In her words :

Stigmatised, marginalised and treated with no sense of proportionality, British smokers are being reduced to the perilous and irrational status that a number of minorities suffered in Germany around 1934 and 5. Today, 23% of Britain’s are being made to feel guilty for who and what they are and everyone else is being encouraged to ‘un-normalise’ them.

Simultaneously pitied, hated and left out in the cold smokers are the new minority that I believe all health workers should now be protective of. For when a terror starts to strike, it is not good enough to blindly stand by and obey politicians’ orders. While I choose not to be a smoker, I recognise it is time for good people to stand up on the side of common sense, proportionality and basic tolerance. Being a British libertarian who has always hated racism, homophobia and cruelty, I have a keen sense of when things are going too far and when in the name of the public or collective good, persecution is being unacceptably legitimized.

Another great read today comes from Simon Clark over at Politics.co.uk about how Nanny Lansley's stance of blindly supporting the crooks in the anti-smoking industry are losing the NuConservatives core and activist support.

He also mentions other signatories to a letter in the Telegraph who call for an end to "Denormalisation."

Perhaps something happened after that awful tragedy in Japan to turn the tide o hate against us here. Perhaps such events put into perspective what is truly dangerous to hundreds of thousands of people and what is not.

As for Lansley and the NuCons - I have one question. What final solution do you have in mind once you force smokers down to 18.5% in five years and thereafter? I will remain among the smoker minority so what future plans do you have to make the last years of my life hell? I think we smokers and the wider public have a right to know now.

She would say that, wouldn’t she?

A recent report commissioned by the Department of Health has apparently found that the smoking ban has had “no clear adverse impact on the hospitality industry.” That is more than a little hard to believe when pretty much every pub operator reporting results over the past three years has referred to the adverse impact of the ban on sales, and when there is such a weight of anecdotal evidence from individual licensees that they have lost trade from it.

However, let’s look at the author of the research, Professor Linda Bauld. According to her official University of Bath profile, her professional interests include:

• Scientific Adviser to the Department of Health on Tobacco Control
  
• Vice-chair of Cancer Research UK’s Tobacco Advisory Group
  
• Member of the ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) Advisory Council
  
• Member of the Smokefree South West Programme Board
  
• Member of the International Network of Women Against Tobacco (INWAT)

So hardly someone who could be expected to take a dispassionate view of tobacco-related issues. Turkeys are never going to support an early Christmas.

You also have to ask why such a report was commissioned by the Department of Health anyway. If you’re looking at the effects on business, surely it is the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills who should be taking the lead, as the DoH have an inbuilt interest in skewing the results.

Mark Daniels (who is very much in the “live with it and move on” camp) surely has it right here when he says:

Any survey can have its data skewed in a manner to achieve the result which is felt is needed, and I’m sure restaurants and hotels have probably not seen a negative response from 2007’s ban, but who can ignore the dramatic rise in the closures of public houses and bingo halls after its introduction, and the drop in footfall for businesses such as nightclubs?

I’ve often chuckled to myself when people ask what sort of impact the smoking ban has had on my business. The honest answer is that I have only lost a handful of customers walking through the door, but they now use the pub differently, and for a much shorter amount of time in an evening than they ever did before. The net result in the first year was a drop of 40% in my takings - and that hurt.

He makes the important point that, while many smokers continue to use pubs (albeit fewer than before), they do so in a different way that means they spend less time there and put less money across the bar.

It would be good if some of those who supported the ban in 2007 had the honestly to come out and say that, whatever its merits, it has had a seriously detrimental effect on the pub trade. I’ve yet to hear it, though – to a man (and woman) they remain mired in denial.

BLIMEY!

A quick post due to the fact that I'll be working all week and likely not to have much time.

I was just absolutely astounded to find a common sense view from a Conservative Blimey!

Councillor Simon Cooke writes on quitting and the corporate grasp of the anti-smoker industry and its lies. Brilliant.

A brilliant strategy – medicalise the delivery of nicotine! Let me tell you something, these products don’t work. People stop smoking because they want to stop smoking – and whether they use patches, gum or specialist smoking cessation drugs makes not one jot of difference. But it does keep a pretty huge and very profitable industry going!

Well worth a read.

THERE IS NO SAFE LEVEL OF GOVT STUPIDITY

Alan Johnson, the creep who made smokerphobia compulsory during his time in Govt, was on BBC Question Time the other night and the very sight of him almost caused me to burst a blood vessel. He is so bad for health, they should ban him from all public places.

I could feel my fingernails gripping tighter into the arms of the settee as he opened his mouth and started talking. Those dodgy, used car salesman, slitty eyes narrowed further as he spewed forth his congratulations to the NuConservatives for implementing his policy on further denormalisation of tobacco consumers.

Yes, they'd have us stigmatised for the crime of buying a legal product we've enjoyed for decades by making it damn near impossible for us to buy it in the UK. First the tobacco display ban, next plain packaging after the charade of the fake consultation.

Meanwhile these monumental acts of stupidity, born from an ideologically obsessive healthist stance, have made smoking infinitely more dangerous, especially for the poor and the young, and deprived the UK treasury of some £4B in lost tax as this Panorama investigation shows.

Wittingly or unwittingly, these puritans are falling into the trap laid for them by smoker haters such as Action on Smoking and Health the charity founded to help smokers but has now become a greedy, far right wing lobby group that gobbles public money for its twisted cause to force smokers out of society by any means.

How much ASH costs the UK treasury from smokers who legally go abroad to avoid the fuss and tax must be equal to that of the cost of the black market.

What a great achievement but public opinion could not be twisted without the morality of Govt behind it - hence the smoking ban had to come first. Previous Govts have sensibly stayed out of the argument and let market forces decide.

It was only when Bigot Johnson's NuLabour weirdos swallowed hook, line and sinker every lie pushed down our throats during the first 10 years of their power. Arnott even took the piss out of her new paymasters. She explained how the con was pulled on a public that frankly didn't give a damn about smoking one way or the other :

It is essential that campaigners create the impression of inevitable success. Campaigning of this kind is literally a confidence trick: the appearance of confidence both creates confidence and demoralises the opposition. The week before the free vote we made sure the government got the message that we "knew" we were going to win and it would be better for them to be on the winning side.
(Deborah Arnott and Ian Willmore; July 2006)

No wonder both smoking and non smoking voters who fight against smokerphobia are flocking to the only party that speaks common sense on this issue. Even the NuGovt has to admit UKIP is best for the UK after swiping UKIP policy which it is claiming as its own.

Smokers who care about this cause have a duty to vote UKIP. The hate won't end unless Govt ends it and it seems that the NuTories are tainted with the same level of stupidity as NuLabour. You can expect years more pain under them.

And so it begins

A couple of years ago, I wrote “Might a future government seek to “persuade” brewers to reduce the strength of widely-available beers in the interest of public health?” And now it seems I’m being proven right. This week, Heineken are to announce that, as part of a “pact” with the government, they are “reducing the strength of “a leading brand” – thought to be the cider Strongbow – by 1pc alcohol by volume, from 5.3pc to 4.3pc as “just the start” of attempts to lower the alcoholic content of its drinks.”

Now, I can’t imagine the typical consumer of a 2 litre PET bottle of Strongbow being very happy with it being watered down to 4.3%, so there’s a market opportunity there for independent cidermakers, but would any of them have the guts to defy the anti-drink tide? It’s not hard to see the anti-drink lobby having a go at craft brewers and cidermakers for refusing to cut the strength of their products in line with the big boys.

And I will forecast now that, once the government see that introducing a higher level of beer duty at 7.5% ABV makes little difference to anything, they will steadily bring the threshold down so eventually it will be impossible to buy beer above 4.5% without paying punitive taxation on it, which will effectively lead to the disappearance of such beers from bars and off-licence shelves.

A move to the country

There was an interesting statement from John Hutson of Wetherspoon’s that the company are seeking to move into more rural areas. What he really means of course, is that they’re planning to move into central locations in market towns, of which they already have plenty from Uttoxeter to Haverfordwest. However, for whatever reason they couldn’t make a go of others such as the Lodestar in Neston and the Red Lyon in Whitchurch, so they will have to be careful about site selection.

It may sound the death-knell for some old pubs in these towns, but, on the other hand, if you don’t give customers what they want you have no divine right to survival. I have written before of the difficulty I found in finding anything to eat in pubs in Bromyard, Herefordshire, although I suspect Bromyard is too small a town ever to have a Spoons.

What really would be a challenge is taking over some of our failing 20th century suburban pubs. I have heard a rumour (which I doubt is true) that Spoons are casting their eye over the Gateway in East Didsbury. Wikipedia claims that “a third type of Wetherspoons outlet has also been trialled in recent years, focused more on food, with minimal Wetherspoon branding and an extended menu,” which could be the ideal formula for such locations.

Tim Martin has also been giving the government a good kicking over the current tax and regulatory regime for pubs.

It’s worth mentioning this interesting site which has a listing of all Wetherspoon pubs past and present.

The picture shows Wetherspoons’ Hippodrome in Market Drayton, a market town with a population of of just over 10,000.

Oh really?

Here’s another unusual pub name spotted on Google StreetView in Driffield in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

I’d lay money that you don’t actually get what it says on the sign.

HATE SMOKER DAY HEROES AND VILLAINS

We've all heard about Kate Moss smoking on the catwalk on that most puritanical of days but she wasn't the only hero to make a stance on National Hate Smoker Day - or No Smoking Day in modern Newspeak.

Actor Jeremy Irons decided to give the Oscars a miss because he's fed up of continually having to go outside and decided he'd be better off staying at home.



UKIP leader Nigel Farage also had a common sense view. He made no apologies for it and later posted on Twitter and Facebook that no-one would tell him what to do. He lit up in his Brussels office and ordered a box of doughnuts to ensure the lifestyle police got the message.



Anti-smokers soon crawled out of the woodwork to get their ever so offended and worried for the chiiildren best faces on to attack this form of free expression and support for smokers.

Kirstie Allsop (who? - she of some home improvement show) soon dived in and attacked Kate Moss whose courage was to highlight "a woman's right to live life as she chooses." I salute her stance which came soon after International Women's Day.



Prod-nosed bigot Kirstie would deny women to be themselves because they don't agree with her stance on tobacco. She whined :

"Is Kate Moss learning impaired? Smoking kills women, endangers children's health & drains the NHS #notbignotclever #respectyourinfluence
She's made a fortune out of being an aspirational figure, she needs to give back & respect her influence."

Well, Kirstie, she most certainly has done both. Huge respect goes to Kate Moss from me and millions of other free thinking people. Thanks Kate for the inspiration and support.

I wish I knew Irene Oldfather so I could find a photo of her but all I know is that she is some paranoid smokerphobic hag associated with the Scottish Parliament who would like to see Press censorship - unless it is spouting her propaganda, I suppose. It seems she would also tell modelling agencies how to run their businesses. Her motion proposed :

Condemning the Promotion of Smoking During Paris Fashion Week—That the Parliament was disappointed to see national newspapers use images of Kate Moss smoking a cigarette while modelling for Louis Vuitton at Paris Fashion Week; condemns the use of cigarettes and smoking as a method of highlighting fashion and gaining publicity; considers that images of models smoking can be very attractive to young people, who might aspire to be like such icons, and that such high-profile images detract from the work carried out to prevent young people from smoking and in educating them on the harm that it causes; notes that it is estimated that 15,000 young people take up smoking in Scotland every year and that it causes one quarter of all adult deaths, and further considers tobacco to be highly addictive and that its easy availability and visibility can lead to young people becoming hooked, which is damaging to their health and the health of those around them.

(photo brought to my attention by Xopher in the comments)

Of course the biggest creep of the day was Health Persecutor Andrew Lansley - you know, the one who is pretending to be a free market Conservative (snigger).



He announced the Govt's plan to increase child smoking and make smoking far more dangerous than it ever has been by encouraging the tax exempt Black Market initiative run by international criminals.

His ridiculous tobacco dispaly ban is the first step in the process.

Then there were the everyday heros like a Facebook friend who ensured he lit up when walking past the smoke-free thugs that invaded our town centres on March 9 with the aim of making us feel even more stigmatised.

Some gin-soaked hag felt she had the right to be offensive :

Yeah and making your breath smell, pervades the air for others and kills people...yeah grab a fag. I am sorry if that sounds rude, truth hurts.

And I would intentionally beat your brains out and step on the fag which you would litter the ground with, in most cases not extinguished. Believe me they (being the powers that be) will start on alcohol at some stage in the near future. We are the worst in Europe for drunken idiots.

My g&t has run out am off now for refill. Happy puffing folks. Just puff in your own homes that's all we ask!

My friend pointed out how offensive she was and she apologised. One can only hope she was abusive because that's what she's learned to do from the anti-smokers. Perhaps she's been re-educated but she didn't the seem the type to suddenly change her view. With luck, she'll keep it to herself next time. I wonder what she'll think of begging Govt to deal with drinkers when they come for her.

Finally, the dumbnut award of the day goes to another FB commenter who had a huge No Smoking sign behind her profile pic. Her inspirational suggestion for reducing smoking rates was :

I think they should put the price of a packet of fags up to £20. It would be an interesting experiment on the true elasticity of demand for tobacco in the UK.

I pointed out that people are growing their own tobacco and saving up their Uk tax to buy cheaper abroad and that such a price could inflate the black market further.

*Sigh* Hmmm, well, :

You think a 300% price rise in a packet of fags would make no difference to legal age consumers? You seem to be saying that the price rise wouldn't hit them because they would switch to either growing their own or buying abroad. I doubt that everyone could get their shit together to do what it takes to organize themselves in such a fashion. In any event, what I was musing about when I wrote my comment, was the fact that your drug of choice is demonstrably damaging and dangerous. Yet, it is still legal and readily available to you, unlike other drugs, far less damaging, that the government has deemed *bad* and made illegal. £20 is what a heroin addict for example would pay for a fix on the black market. Seems to me you don't have it *that* bad.

So there we have it folks. Another No Smoking/Hate Smoker Day which I'd almost forgotten marked a year to the day since we freed Landlord Nick Hogan by paying his £10,000 fine for the heinous crime of making a stance that he wanted the choice to be able to offer his customers the same service they'd had for years before. Sadly, the Govt took control of both his pubs - smoking and non smoking when they Nationalised our Hospitality Industry.

Cause or effect?

I recently reported on the call from Alcohol Concern for alcoholic drinks to be confined to separate areas in shops. While I certainly wouldn’t say I’m in favour of this, taken in isolation it wouldn’t really make much difference to anything. Other countries (notably Australia) have similar restrictions and don’t seem to be notably abstemious societies. Indeed, we drank more beer, and had a society in which alcohol was more “normalised”, when most off-sales were through stand-alone off-licences, or separate counters in supermarkets, when pubs closed for three hours in the afternoon and at 10.30pm during the week, and across large areas of Wales were closed all day Sunday.

Rather than being a cause of increased at-home drinking, isn’t the rise of alcohol sales in supermarkets, and the increased use of price promotions, primarily a result of a growing market which has over the years become potentially much more valuable for retailers? Business reflects changes in society, it doesn’t in general drive them.

Another factor, of course, is that the rise of beer drinking at home is closely linked with the growth in ownership of cars and refrigerators. Regardless of price, the working man of 1955 would have struggled to get a slab of Carling home from the outdoor, and would have had nowhere to keep it cool once he had, whereas, even in those pre-lager days, most pubs had naturally cool cellars for their draught ale.

I’m also far from convinced that having alcohol on general display increases overall consumption to any significant extent. Yes, it may encourage people to buy particular wines or beers that are being promoted, but I doubt whether it very often persuades people to buy a bottle on impulse when they wouldn’t otherwise have bought any at all.

No safe level

I’ve often seen the argument advanced that there is a fundamental difference between tobacco and alcohol, in that tobacco is harmful to health at all levels of consumption, whereas alcohol in moderation has no adverse effects and indeed for some people may be mildly beneficial. This has led to a different approach to the two in public policy, with governments being much more willing to impose severe restrictions on the advertising and consumption of tobacco products than alcohol.

Of course the official “safe drinking guidelines” have no scientific basis, and don’t reflect real-world consumption patterns, but at least they have given a fig-leaf of respectability to the brewing and distilling industries and the licensed trade. So long as they only appeal to “responsible, moderate drinkers” then they’re OK.

However, Professor David Nutt, the scientist who a couple of years ago masqueraded as someone proposing a more rational approach to illegal drugs while actually advocating draconian anti-drink measures, has now stuck his head above the parapet and claimed that there is no such thing as a safe level of alcohol consumption.

This is very effectively demolished by Chris Snowdon, who points out that many of Nutt’s claims are profoundly unscientific and bear a close resemblance to the shrill rhetoric of 19th century temperance campaigners. This includes statements such as “alcohol is a poison” and that people can become addicted to alcohol from their first drink, together with the description of the alcohol business as a “toxic industry.” I wonder if your typical man-in-a-shed brewer or freehouse operator recognises himself from that description.

Nevertheless, this isn’t going to be the last we will see of this particular line of reasoning. So expect to see the argument advanced more and more in the coming years that, as there is no safe level of alcohol consumption, the alcohol business is not a “legitimate” trade and it is a reasonable objective for government to seek to reduce consumption as near to zero as possible. So any calls for government help for pubs, or small breweries, or distilleries, or wineries, are going to fall on deaf ears.

You can’t really imagine anyone today producing a video saying “I’m proud of British tobacco products.” In twenty years’ time, might it be equally unthinkable that British brewers could do the same about their “toxic industry”?

Being executed with a bacon slicer

I was tempted to post about the government plans to require tobacco products to be sold in plain packaging, but in the end decided there’s only so much outrage I can summon up in a day. But I was struck by this rather despairing post by IanB on the Counting Cats in Zanzibar blog:

I feel scared. I can see the world I grew up in being dismantled, bit by bit. There are times I wish they’d just get it over with. In a sense, it is the gradualism that is unbearable. There are times I wish they’d just ban everything- baccy and beer, burgers and bangers, and all the rest- once and for all. Instead, they creep forward one apparently tiny step at a time. It’s like being executed with a bacon slicer.

You do have to wonder when it’s all going to stop. Will there ever be some turn of the tide, some popular uprising against all the nannies and the bullies? Or will all of our freedom and individual responsiblility continue to be dismantled, agonisingly slowly, piece by piece?

And the truly galling thing is that so many are happy to stand by and applaud as others lose their extremities to the blade, even though they must know, deep down, that one day it will be their turn.

Turning drinkers into social lepers

Excellent article here by Tim Black on the growing campaign to “denormalise” alcohol, of which the demand to confine alcoholic drinks to separate sections of shops is just one small part.

The specific demand – to have separate alcohol areas in supermarkets – is as petty as it is predictable, coming as it does from a group of the professionally Concerned. But the general thrust behind the demand should not be so easily dismissed. That is, a state-backed coalition of the aloof seems intent on ‘denormalising’ alcohol. The means are many, from implementing a minimum price for alcohol to demanding that twentysomethings prove their age, but the end is the same: they want drinking and drinkers stigmatised. They want the consumption of alcohol to be looked upon not as ‘the natural accompaniment to a relaxing meal’, but as an activity as shameful and embarrassing as, well, smoking.

Many of the individual measures may, taken alone, not seem unreasonable, but the cumulative effect is to make alcohol much less of a “normal” part of everyday life. And, of course, as he points out, the template was taken from the campaign against smoking. What happened to smokers yesterday will be happening to drinkers tomorrow.

Just as smoking has been rendered socially abhorrent, so drinking seems to be undergoing a similar assault. Every mean-spirited measure, every report highlighting how much alcohol consumption costs the NHS, every single story hacked out of the cliché of binge-drinking Britain, serves to make the rather mundane act of drinking alcohol that little bit less acceptable, that little bit less normal. We are to be shamed into changing our boozy ways.

Halcyon days

I was a bit taken aback to see Ed on his Student Brewer blog referring to this as a golden age for pubs. At a time when pubs are closing left, right and centre, including the one at the bottom of my road, this is bit hard to accept, although it isn’t necessarily inconsistent that, despite an overall declining market, the best pubs are better than ever.

So I thought I would ask the question “In which year would you have most liked to be a beer drinker and pubgoer in the UK?” Below is a brief summary of the salient points of each year in the poll. Every year has its points of interest, although it’s hard to see why anyone would plump for 1971 over 1981, and 1951 might have historical interest but the general pubgoing experience would have been rather dismal to present-day eyes (although early results suggest it’s proving more popular than I might have thought).

1951: you can see the old-style brewing industry before the wave of takeovers and mergers. Pubs are quite busy as in the post-war world there’s not much else to spend your money on. However, many pubs are very run-down and beer quality is variable.

1961: the country is much more prosperous and pubs have been smartened up a lot, although high duty and the impact of TV have reduced custom. The first keg beers have started to appear in pubs, and bottled beer has become much more popular. There has been some consolidation of the industry, but the 1960s merger and takeover boom is still in the future. The last year in the series before the introduction of the breathalyser.

1971: the brewing industry has been transformed by the wave of takeovers that created the hated “Big Six”. It is three years since the breathalyser was introduced. Keg beer has become widespread and some areas are “real ale deserts”. However, the pub trade has boomed and sales are well up on 1961. This is your chance to see the industry before CAMRA came on the scene.

1981: this is just after the all-time peak of pub beer sales in 1979. There has been a marked increase in real ale availability, and in most parts of the country there is far more choice, although lager is now making serious inroads into overall sales of ale. The availability of decent food in pubs has greatly increased. Independent family brewers like Yates & Jackson and Border are still in operation.

1991: a dramatic expansion of micro-breweries has greatly widened the choice of beer, although a number of significant family brewers have been taken over. Lager has now overtaken ale as the biggest seller in pubs, but nevertheless handpumps are sprouting everywhere and this is possibly the post-1971 high point of real ale availability. After falling in the early 80s recession, pub beer sales have held up pretty well. All-day opening has now been introduced.

2001: further expansion of micro-breweries and specialist beer pubs. However, more independent family brewers have been lost and there is now evidence that anti-drink sentiment is depressing on-trade sales. Smooth beers have appeared on the scene and real ale has gone from many of the more marginal outlets. The trade has been transformed by the Beer Orders and the advent of the giant pubcos. Last year in the series before the smoking ban.

2011: Progressive Beer Duty has led to a further expansion of the micro-brewery sector. The UK has more breweries than at any time since the Second World War, and the range of beer brands and styles available is wider than ever before. There is a new wave of specialist beer pubs that are far more than just the traditional “multi-beer freehouse.” Pubs are now generally allowed to open after 11pm. On the other hand, the smoking ban has had a devastating effect on the trade of pubs in working-class areas, and there has been an unprecedented wave of pub closures producing growing “pub deserts”. The drinks industry is also under increasing attack from the neo-Prohibitionists.

TORIES BACK RISE IN CHILD SMOKING

Well, the only way to get more young people smoking and to increase their chance of getting hold of tobacco is to create a thriving black market. There can be no other reason why the NuGovt has announced it has nationalised tobacco packaging with the order that legitimate business must not inform smokers of what product they are buying.

No doubt the criminals are celebrating this unique opportunity and already getting their plain packaged low quality and dangerous mix of shite and tobacco ready for the big day.

Unlike legitimate shop keepers, they will not ask proof of age before selling to children and I can only assume that this is the real aim of the NuGovt and the corrupt anti-smoking industry whose pocket the NuGovt lives in.

Yes, to survive the anti-smoking industry needs more smokers to persecute and not less and so this plan must have an ulterior motive. Intellectual politicians and fair Govts that listen to all sides and conduct consultation before embarking on such stupidity would never do such a thing.

But then who said this NuGovt, and it's health persecutors Andrew Lansley and Ann Milton, had any intelligence? They are blinded and motivated by pure hate.

Smokers - if you voted Tory last time I hope you have taken note. They had no plans to help you. They lied before the election to get your vote and now they are happy to tell you to fuck off.

I hope you give them the same message next time you are asked to support them - like at the upcoming council elections for example. Bloody nose? I'd expect the country's 12 million smokers (ooops - sorry that's gone up to 15 million since the blanket ban) to lay the Tories out flat.

Holts IPA

While we have any number of seasonal and one-off beers, it’s still a rare event for an established brewer to make a permanent addition to their range. That, however, is what Holts have done with the introduction of Holts IPA, a lighter and hoppier counterpart to their standard Bitter, which weighs in at 3.8% ABV as opposed to 4%, and sells for a couple of pence a pint less.

While Holts Bitter remains a distinctly dry and bitter beer, it has undoubtedly become darker and maltier over the years – it isn’t the pale, “shockingly bitter” brew that people recall from the 1970s. So IPA could in a sense be regarded as a return to their roots, although undoubtedly the inspiration is the growth in “golden ales”. I was quite impressed by my first sample – it was more robustly hoppy than I expected, yet still with a firm malt underpinning. A wishy-washy, floral golden ale it is not.

I do hope, though, that Holts IPA doesn’t go the way of Samuel Smith’s Tadcaster Bitter, a very palatable pale bitter introduced in the mid-80s that offered a good contrast to the darker, maltier Old Brewery Bitter, but which never managed to sell alongside it, probably because if you just asked for “Bitter” you always got OBB. But the world has changed since then, and Holts IPA has the advantage of being easy to ask for by name, so I doubt whether it will prove a flop.

Robinson’s somewhat similar Dizzy Blonde has now become a permanent beer alongside Unicorn, and appears in a growing number of pubs. When it first came out I thought it rather insipid but recent samples have shown a fuller body and firmer hoppy bite.

Clouding the issue

In the most recent poll, I asked the question “Is clarity important in British bitters and pale ales?” There were 54 responses, broken down as follows:

Yes, absolutely: 21 (39%)
To some extent, but I’ll always taste it first: 28 (52%)
Not really: 5 (9%)

Now, I make no apology for falling firmly into the first camp. This can lead to accusations of “drinking with my eyes”, but to my mind it is important that beer appeals to the eyes as well as to the tastebuds. It's generally accepted that you enjoy food more if it’s attractively presented rather than just dumped on the plate, and the same is true of beer. British cask beers, even dark milds, are meant to be crystal clear, and if they’re not, 99 times out of 100 it represents either poor cellarmanship or something inherently wrong with the cask. And, however tolerant enthusiasts may be of haziness, if you’re trying to encourage people to try cask beer it’s a major turn-off.

GOOSE PIMPLES AS UKIP COMES OF AGE

Tears, passion, determination and hope were the hallmarks of UKIP's Spring Conference at Scarborough where the party came of age after 13 years of battling to win main stream public support.

I got goosepumps as I sat among the thousands of delegates who watched history in the making as this former one issue fringe party called out the lions of the LibLabCon to a fight for the heart and soul of the country.

Support for UKIP is In the National Interest and I believe those who care about freedom, democracy and stability have a duty to future generations to come on board now and stop the damage caused by the career LibLabCon politicians.

The party's excellent result in Barnsley shows that is the real alternative to the LibDems and with hard work it can become the third party of British politics. Perhaps it could do even better as it does appear the British public is waking from a very long slumber.

Almost 70% didn't vote at Barnsley - not because they are content with the "Coalition of Children" as Lord Monckton called the NuGovt - but because they can't see anything or anyone worth voting for. They've lost their faith that the Three Party Alliance can help them so they stay home in despair and switched off. How big would Labour's true share of the vote be if they had turned out?

In UKIP is a party that speaks for all of the disaffected of the LibLabCon - the ones who can see nothing familiar in the Parties of their parents. The political wind is changing and UKIP has caught it.

What's at stake is everyday life. For a party accused of being "xenophobic" UKIP has members from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds who see UKIP as the ONLY alternative party and the only one courageous enough to speak in real opposition to issues of grave concern that dare not speak their name.

The speakers who had the most effect on me were the ordinary granddad - a former Labour councillor - who would rather be with his grandchildren but he has come out of retirement and back into politics because he truly fears for their future.

Then there was the former Conservative member who said this battle for freedom and real democracy was as important as the battles of WW1 and WW2. He is not the only one to see that EU control of nation states is dangerous to our economic and social well being.

UKIP's stance on wanting out of the EU is not about hate of Europe - it's about hate of the undemocratic power of individuals over all nations of our continent.

UKIP's fight is with the EU for killing and stifling the diversity of our European friends and neighbours with endless regulations and ideological beliefs that don't relate to real people.

The battle is about fighting intolerance, division, exclusion, inequality and thought crime. The battle is to create wealth because without it there is nothing to share.

UKIP believes the people of this country should have the power to make their own decisions in line with what is best for their economic and social needs. We should at least be asked whether we want in or out of the EU.

Another speaker told the story of a school boy tasked to do an essay on the benefits of being a member of the EU. He researched it but couldn't find anything he thought was beneficial and so he wrote about the disadvantages of being in the EU. He was given detention.

A schoolgirl who decided to be a UKIP candidate in a mock election was told there would be no representation of "racist" parties. It confirmed in her mind the importance of freedom of speech.

Throughout the whole two days of conference and speaking to many UKIP supporters, I did not hear one word said that could be deemed racist. I also saw too many black and Asian faces among the delegates to be convinced it is "xenophobic" in any way.

Another myth about UKIP is that it only draws in Tories who see it as a "protest group". There are too many former Labour supporters and Lib Dem supporters for that and the Tories have come over because they don't recognise this brand of NuConservatism promoted by Dave and his mates.

One speaker who brought tears to my eyes was a fifth generation fisherman. A man who has never been involved in politics but is moved to join the fight because of his fear that there will be no sixth generation out at sea but on the dole. He can see his culture being slaughtered with the thousands of dead fish he has to keep throwing back under ludicrous EU demands of Fish Discard - and the continual rolling over of the British Govt in pandering to outrageous EU demands.

I joined the party as the only alternative when I felt politically and socially disconnected by the smoking ban. I didn't expect much and I was wary. I found almost immediately that every thing I'd ever read about UKIP in the press did not reflect the majority view on the ground.

It is drawing in people from left, right and centre who are coming together because they can see that UKIP's leader is strong, original, passionate, skilled, and he's certainly no "Heir to Blair."

He has common sense and courage and he inspires that in his membership. They are ordinary people who would rather be sitting at home but they know this fight is down to them. They are not taking to the streets to riot but with quiet dignity they have taken to canvassing on the doorstep instead. They have joined a party that has listened and will act but will not make promises it can't keep.

Farage comes across as genuine. He is such a great orator and politican he would be an asset to any of the LibLabCon. He can talk the talk and walk the walk but he chooses not to. Indeed, when he took part in the Mumsnet debate, he was asked why he didn't progress his personal career and join the Lib Dems. For Farage it is about honouring and staying true to what he believes in. He will take no part in selling Britain's soul for his own professional gain.

The question of the future will be who is "Heir to Farage" and the answer might lie in the inspiring Young Independents group made up of members aged 18 - 24. Their speakers were intellectual, original, independent and refreshing. Surveys show that UKIP is attracting more support among this age group than the LibDems. UKIP will abolish tuition fees for students and it can make that promise.

If you're on Facebook there's a precis of UKIP policies HERE

A mini-manifesto can be found here HERE

I'm looking forward to September and the next conference in Eastbourne. Meanwhile, we have the upcoming council elections to fight. Bearing in mind UKIP's cuts aim to hit those at the top who can most afford it most, and the useless quangos that support them, it has a strong local message to take out to the door.

With four new defections also announced during Conference, it's obvious that UKIP really is a party on the up that has come of age and the electorate has recognised it.

UKIP SHAMES THE LIBLABCON

At last. It appears the electorate is waking up to the LibLabCon as people in Barnsley voted in droves last night to push UKIP into second place and the Tories and LibDems right off the scale.

Serves you right Nick Clegg with your refusal to acknowledge smokers, your arrogance in deciding what "freedoms" we are permitted and which we are not. I hope your party is finished due to its shameful support of the anti-smoker industry and smokerphobe ideology.

I also hope that Real Conservatives will abandon Cameron and his usurpers who, like the Lib Dems, have betrayed their members' hopes and beliefs. The support smokers gave to them in hope at the last election, won't come their way again because they have not done one thing for us.

The result in Barnsley was brilliant - but for the Labour win. I hope it's a one off for them in a safe seat. Surely the electorate is not so stupid as to trust NuLabour again. It's refusal to listen to smokers, and it's active campaign to exclude, denormalise, and criminalise smokers, means its lost my vote and that of others like me who were loyal for generations. That will never come back.

Disaffected, Lib lab and Con supporters, cross over and be part of a new future for the country and support the only party that cares about it - UKIP.

I will be at the UKIP Spring conference tomorrow with lots to report from the event as it unfolds - or a full report when I get back.

I am so happy today. I hope the LibLabCon took note of what happened last night. The quiet revolution has begun. We will not be ignored any longer.

THE LINE'S BEEN DRAWN

I couldn't blog yesterday because I felt physically sick at the orchestrated anti-smoker campaign that used and exploited children to further it's morally twisted cause.

My guess is that the 15,000 signatures collected were from children of those who work in the industry - or parents who don't see that their kids are getting a lesson in how to fear and how to hate people who have no wish to harm anyone.

I wonder if it was just coincidental that this stage managed approach from people I have never met, telling me what to do with my own car that they will never get into, happened on the same day that a state backed harassment campaign against smokers was launched.

As Leg Iron says, it proves that police forces need trimming back. Teresa May should be looking to Essex first when deciding where the biggest axe on services should fall.

Essex police obviously have officers to waste on intimidating people in their own private property while they go about their private daily business peacefully. A company car used to belong to the owner of the company. The boss set the rules for the employee who used it. There were consequences if they were broken. The Govt had no right to interfere.

All private company vehicles were Nationalised by NuLabour along with private pubs, restaurants, and cafes and this NuGovt is doing nothing to relieve the pressure. Not satisfied with slaughtering the pub industry, it seems the state is now costing companies delivery time by allowing the police to set up "stop and sniff" road blocks to delay drivers. If it wasn't so oppressive it would be reminiscent of an Ealing Comedy.

I have accepted all restrictions with dignity in the past 40 years and abided by them. Telling me what to do with a legal product on my own property is a step too far. It is my line. This is where I take no more. This is where I fail to comply.

I will ignore a car ban. I will ignore a home ban. I will not let them exploit money from me in fines. I will go to prison if I have to. I said criminalisation after exclusion was the aim all along. It looks like it might come to that for me. I will have no other choice.

I don't want to lose the remaining liberty I have left over this issue but what is the point of liberty if you are not free to enjoy it? The prison of the inside or the prison of the outside makes no difference. I want back the life the anti-smokers and smokerphobes stole from me. I want to live in peace without fear or prejudice. Why does this merit such a demonstration of hate against me?

Why is this Govt not listening and when will it act to stop this fear and hatred from spiralling further out of control?

We have no plans...

When one brewery takes over another, it’s very common for them to say “we will keep Brewery X in operation as a completely separate business.” And that commitment almost without exception proves to have been built on sand. Today it has been announced that William Reed, publishers of the Morning Advertiser, are to acquire rival licensed trade paper The Publican from United Business Media for £1.5 million. Any bets on how long the two continue as separate publications?