Promoting the peaceful pub as antidote to binge drinking

Mar 7 2008 by Alastair Gilmour, The Journal

SOME days you’re the fly, others you’re the windscreen. It’s one of those unavoidable facts of life.

Today, we feel more like Hans Brinker, the little Dutch boy who stuck his finger in a leaking dyke to save his country from flooding. Each week, we sing the praises of beer; its myriad mergers of malted barley, hops, water and yeast; the aggregated pleasure of friends, family and pub; the excitement of a brewery visit; the anticipation of a pint; expectancy, fulfillment, and sometimes even disappointment.

And, each week we read horror stories of drunken revellers, alcohol-fuelled assaults, drink-related incidents – and worse. Now, no less a figure than Mike Craik, chief constable of Northumbria Police, has asked the question if it is now time to take the “uniquely harmful substance out of the normal retail chain”. Of course, he’s right. Although overall crime and alcohol consumption figures are down, rigorous action is needed on alcohol’s supermarket pricing, its advertising, and for better-aimed education on its harmful effects.

But Mike Craik is also wrong. He has piled city-centre alcohol abuse – “two for one” promotions by commodity-shifting pub companies don’t help – into the same category as ale-appreciators supping beer in honeysuckle-trellised country pubs where cheery-cheeked landlords dispense all-day banter and Labradors lie snoozing. We Hans Brinkers and houseflies feel swamped.

Now Britain’s independent brewers have launched a concerted campaign to promote the pub as an antidote to binge drinking and the wide availability of cheap booze. The Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) has commissioned two drawings based on Gin Lane and Beer Street, the 1750s engravings by artist and satirist William Hogarth which illustrated alcohol’s insidious effects on society. In the new pictures, Gin Lane is renamed Binge Lane, a scene of violence, unconsciousness and under-age drinking in the midst of shops selling cheap beer, alcopops and Vin de Toilette.

Beer Street becomes Pub Street, a peaceful environment of real ale, good food, bar games and live entertainment.

Rhymes beneath Hogarth’s originals speak of gin as a “cursed fiend, with fury fraught” which “cherishes with hellish care, theft, murder, perjury”.

But beer is praised as a “happy produce of our isle”, which “warms each English generous breast with liberty and love”.

SIBA chairman Peter Amor says: “The gin of the 18th Century may have been replaced by a whole trolley of cheap drinks, but the message is the same. The pub is practically the only place where you can drink draught beer and where people’s behaviour is subject to strict controls by the licensee and by the presence of mature, well-behaved regular customers who wouldn’t stand for any kind of trouble.

“The real source of the problems being sensationally highlighted by the media at the moment is cheap liquor sold in bulk and, in a minority of supermarkets and off-licences, without much regard to the age of the people buying it. In the circumstances, it is totally unfair to lump pubs in with the real perpetrators of the problem.”

Supporting the positive aspects of the British pub is now a priority, but where does “liberty and love” towards beer start? If more people like Sean Franklin, of Harrogate-based Roosters Brewery, could get their ideals across to the great unconverted, we would evolve into a society that holds beer in a completely different light, as in the Czech Republic and Belgium where it is such a part of people’s lives it is a key factor in the social fabric of religion, education and commerce.

Sean says: “Sadly, beer in this country is seen by the big pub companies as an alcoholic commodity. Beer is bought by alcoholic degrees and governed by price – if you waver off that they simply don’t want to know. It has never dawned on them that beer has a sensory value. What you’re selling is interest and excitement.”

Education in liberty and love starts here: There are more than 2,000 beer brands available in the UK which include light, crisp lagers, dark, intensely flavoured stouts and a whole gamut of styles and tastes between – pale ales, barley wines, wheat beers and beers flavoured with spices, herbs and fruits.

Beer’s diversity makes it a hugely versatile drink. A refreshing thirst-quencher in summer, a warming brew in winter, enjoyable on its own or with food.

Beer, when drunk in moderation, doesn’t make you fat. Nutritionists now believe that the so-called “beer belly” is caused not by the beer itself, but by the calorific snacks or takeaways that so often accompany or follow a few drinks. Measure for measure, beer has fewer calories than wine; a 100ml serving of 4.6% alcohol by volume lager, for example, has just 41 calories, compared to 77 calories in 100ml of 12% ABV wine. A typical 250ml serving of beer contains 102 calories, compared to 192 calories in the same size measure of wine. Beer contains no fat or cholesterol.

Again in moderation, beer offers a number of health benefits. Moderate beer drinkers have a substantially reduced risk of coronary heart disease compared to teetotallers or heavy drinkers. Studies show that alcohol prevents the build-up of fat on artery walls and reduces blood clotting, the two main factors in heart disease. Beer protects against osteoporosis, according to research. Moderate beer drinkers also have a decreased risk of developing gallstones or late-onset diabetes. However, more research is needed to fully explain alcohol’s preventative role in these conditions.

Beer is made from natural ingredients, typically barley malt, hops, yeast and water, where flavour is a testament to the brewer’s skill in choosing and blending the perfect combination for his particular needs.

Ninety per cent of the beer sold in the UK is brewed in the UK, while 99% of the wine sold here is imported. Cask-conditioned beer – or real ale – is literally a living product, developing as it matures into a drink that is full of natural flavours, influenced in varying degrees by its ingredients. Sales of mass-produced keg beers are in free-fall; quality cask ales have seen a growth of almost 11% in the past year. Discuss.

Mike Craik has also warned that “not enough was being done to change the nation’s drinking culture”. Pub operators such as Tony Brookes, managing director of The Head of Steam group, has long campaigned for cheap alcohol to be outlawed – and he has brought in initiatives to combat the phenomenon. The Sean Franklins of the world will continue to educate our minds and our palates but there is a danger that reasoned voices are being drowned out by what the chief constable rightly calls “exaggerated language and shocking photographs... cliches and statistics taken out of context”. Those are the people we should be learning from before a digit in a dam wall becomes an inadequate defence and decent beer folk end up washed out.

alastair.gilmour@ncjmedia.co.uk