Clutching At Straws For A Silver Lining

I've signed the beer tax e-petition. I hope you have too.

I don't suppose that it will have any impact whatsoever, but, what the hell, we've got nothing to lose have we?

The trouble is, strong beer is a soft target. The bigger problem is that governments want to keep on being governments rather than shadow governments. In order to do so they must keep their voters on side by being seen to punish those core voters' "out groups" (psychology speak for subjects of bigotry or prejudice).

The core voters for the current government are Daily Mail readers (well, not for the Lib Dems, but let's forget about them, everybody else does). They're not a constituency known for letting facts get in their way of their opinions. Strong beer has no hope of gaining favour with these people; and it is these people to whom the government would have to justify a drop in duty on stronger beer. The Daily Mail would stir up a storm of wrong-headed indignation.

The problem is multi-faceted:

1) It's beer – this voter demographic is keen to be regarded as middle-class. They regard beer as a working-class drink and binge-drinking as a working-class habit.


2) It's strong – Binge drinking is spiralling out of control, is it not? (remember what I said about not letting facts get in the way of opinions?).


3) Al fresco drinkers are the public face of strong beer.


4) Much strong beer is foreign. The voter demographic is notoriously xenophobic.


Our defence has two facets, neither of which I fear will have much impact :

a) The duty rise affects beers favoured by connoisseurs who generally go home quietly, failing to trouble the emergency services. 

This is not likely to have much impact as connoisseurship is a euphemism for snobbery. In Daily Mail land snobbery is a very bad thing.

b) The new beer duty has a negative impact on Britain's new wave of craft breweries and pubs and bars. 

This is not going to create sympathy amongst Daily Mail readers. When the Daily Mail reports on binge drinking the comments sections fill up with suggestions that the breweries should be clamped down upon. Mired in a model that is at least thirty years out of date, the DM reader uses "breweries" to mean all producers and retailers of alcohol, any alcohol. Binge drinking is increasing so "breweries" must be punished.


All in all, I fear we are stuck with this stupid tax rise. The best we can do is to gird our collective loins for action about any further duty increases.

The only silver lining I can see is that higher priced stronger craft beer may induce the higher price = higher quality perception in more people.

This was the principal used so cleverly by the marketers of Stella Artois in their "reassuringly expensive" slogan. Psychologists and economists have repeatedly demonstrated that people prefer wine they are told is expensive to wine they are told is cheap, even if it is identical – or inferior. People want to be seen as demonstrating taste and discernment, and higher price is the biggest clue available that an item is superior.

This can only be good for beer. It may even draw more people into sharing our pleasure in beer. Beer may shake off some of its downmarket reputation.

Craftiness from CAMRA or Daily Mail being it's usual vile self?

You may have noticed that I am not CAMRA's number one fan. The dogmatism, the prickliness, the thinly-veiled politics, the intransigence, the self-congratulation: you get the picture.

Nor am I a fan of the Daily Mail. The lies, the distortions, the misinformation, the racism, the bigotry, the homophobia, the misquotation, the sexism, the abuse, the entirely unveiled politics. They are all thoroughly taken apart by my favourite non-beer blogs: Tabloid Watch, Press Not Sorry, Angry Mob, Enemies of Reason, Liberal Conspiracy, Five Chinese Crackers, Buff the Banana and Mail Watch.


I know it's not good for my blood pressure, but I regularly scan the outpourings of both CAMRA and the Daily Mail.

Yesterday the Daily Mail ran a non-story about a non-contoversy (nothing unusual in that) about the Good Pub Guide charging pubs for listings. This isn't news. The DM's rubbish "story" also contradicts its previous glowing coverage of the Good Pub Guide.


The story is here. I've saved it for all time in Freezepage as the DM does have a habit of disappearing stories from its website when commenters point out glaring wrongnesses.

The interesting bit is the penultimate paragraph:

Could this keen pub-goer be the Iain Loe who is CAMRA's Research Manager and National Spokesperson? CAMRA are, of course, publishers of the Good Pub Guide's arch-rival the Good Beer Guide.

I suspect this lack of honesty is the fault of the Daily Mail. It has a history of lazy and feckless journalism and non-existant fact-checking all for the sake of whipping up its readers into false rages.

I suspect – and hope – Iain Loe and all at St Albans HQ are furious that the Daily Mail has brought their integrity into question.

The Daily Mail's Redeeming Feature

Much as I heartily despise the Daily Mail and its tiresome "Broken Britain" rhetoric, its racism and its encouragement of fear and hatred, it does give beer some good coverage.

Here, for example.

I still won't be buying it though.

Not Proper Beer?

Don't misunderstand this post. Please be reassured that I am not a "prison's just a holiday camp" Daily Mail reader, although where I live I'm surrounded by them.

I spotted this story while googling the influence of wahabist values in the UK (I should get a life, I know).

"Devout Muslim sues Tesco for making him carry alcohol"

For me, as a beer-snob, this paragraph stood out:

"The tribunal was told Mr Ahmed also gave out 'mixed messages', at one stage suggesting he was allowed to handle Budweiser beer."

I can only conclude that, as it's not proper beer, devout Muslims maybe allowed to handle Budweiser. Maybe not.

Weird world.