Time for sober reflection

There’s a thoughtful article here in today’s Telegraph by Max Davidson looking at the current debate over alcohol policy. He is right to say that kneejerk, headling-grabbing measures are unlikely to have the desired effect, even if they were politically possible, but he is also right to say that we shouldn’t deny that there is any problem at all.

During the thirty-odd years of my drinking career I have certainly seen a much more unpleasant and disorderly atmosphere develop in town and city centres on weekend nights, and there are many more products on the market that seem designed to cater for those who are intent on rapid inebriation without caring much how they get there.

Nobody claims that things were perfect in the 1970s, but I have argued before that changes in the design of pubs and licensing policies have exacerbated late night disorder.

Society has also increasingly tended to disapprove of regular, moderate drinking, in ways such as employers preventing their employees from even having the odd pint at lunchtimes, and drink-driving well within the legal limit being frowned upon. This has broken down the old rituals which kept people’s drinking in check and led them to take an “all or nothing” approach to alcohol.

The government’s official drinking guidelines have proved counter-productive, as they are so unrealistic that people cheerfully ignore them, and they serve to stigmatise those drinking at levels a bit above them, who are not the problem. It is not the 40 unit a week people who are ending up in liver clinics and A&E, it is the 100+ unit a week people.

Of course, taking an interest in what you're drinking, whether cask beer, fine wines or malt whisky, is likely to promote an attitude of enjoying them for their own sake rather than simply as a means to an end, and will encourage a more responsible overall attitude to alcohol.

But governments have to be very careful about legislating in this area, as you cannot promote social change through legislation if it goes against the grain of what is happening on the ground, and there is huge potential for unintended consequences. And you certainly can’t bring about a sense of greater responsibility through legislation alone.

The premium pint

Go into any multi-beer pub, such as the Crown in Stockport, and the odds are that all the cask beers on sale will be at the same price for the same approximate strength. The same is largely true of the premium bottled ales on the off-licence shelf. Yet amongst wines and spirits there can easily be price differences of 3 to 1 between the same strength products.

While there can be big differentials between pubs, no cask beer brewers have successfully managed to establish and maintain a price premium over their rivals, even though some products are manifestly better than others. It’s puzzling why this should be so when it so obviously doesn’t apply in pretty much every other consumer market.

Maybe to a large extent it’s because “cask beer” is seen as a generic product, as the manufacturers of keg lagers, cider and Guinness are able to command a price premium of up to 60p a pint over cask beers of comparable strength. Of course why that should be so is a different question. Possibly the fact that standards of cellarmanship vary so much between different pubs also has a part to play.

I was interested to spot while composing this post that Jeff Pickthall had linked to my poll about how much people would consider exorbitant for a pint of 4.0% ABV beer, and makes a similar point about the lack of price premiums in the cask beer market. One commentator describes the poll as “simplistic”, which of course it is in a way, but it is clear from the responses so far that people’s perceptions of acceptability differ dramatically.

As Jeff says, “Ask wine-lovers ‘How much would you consider exorbitant for a bottle of 12% ABV wine?’ and the response would be a puzzled ‘which wine?’”

Minimum pricing poll

I recently concluded a poll with the question:

Do you agree with the Scottish plan for a minimum price per unit of alcohol?

There were 29 votes in total, and the results were:

Yes, it sounds a good idea: 4 (14%)
Maybe, let’s see how it goes: 3 (10%)
No, definitely not: 22 (76%)

So, a pretty decisive defeat there. As we have seen, this has been kicked into touch by the Scottish Parliament, but today we have seen the clinically obese Sir Liam Donaldson advocating it for England.

Those who wish to defend the right of adults to enjoy alcohol responsibly will have to keep our watch up, as this idea is likely to come back again and again.