The Daily Telegraph reports that the boss of Spanish brewery Estrella Galicia has accused British brewers of “dishonesty” for selling beers that appear Spanish but are brewed in the UK. His most immediate target is Madrí, a beer with a Spanish-sounding name that is in fact brewed by Molson Coors at Tadcaster, and doesn’t represent any actual brand produced or sold in Spain. Mr de Artaza said: “There is a lack of transparency because they use a big famous city in Spain, but they don’t produce here. This is confusing for the consumer.” Since its launch in British pubs in 2020, Madrí has quickly ..read more

A report by consultancy Dea Latis has revealed that the proportion of women in the UK drinking beer is well below that of men, and indeed has fallen over the past six years. According to The Gender Pint Gap: Revisited, while 50% of UK men drink beer on a weekly basis, just 14% of women do so now, which is a three percentage points fall from research carried out by Dea Latis in 2018. However, the question has to be asked whether this is something that really matters. Rather than being the result of discrimination, could it simply stem from differing tastes and preferences? It’s now generally a ..read more

So Rishi Sunak has unexpectedly called a General Election for July 4th. As with previous elections, I have created a poll on people’s voting intentions. I’ve put it in the sidebar, but for those reading this on a phone, which is probably the majority now, I’ve repeated it below. POLL: How will you vote in the General Election on July 4th? ConservativeGreenLabourLiberal DemocratPlaid Cymru/SNPReform UKOtherDo not intend to vote   pollcode.com free polls There is a direct link to the poll here. Feel free to comment on the election, although please try to retain a modicum of politeness! Th ..read more

Back in 2020, just after the end of the first Covid lockdown, I wrote about how the shift from city-centre offices to home working was likely to lead to a permanent change in the dynamics of the pub trade. And indeed so it has proved. While there has been a significant move back to offices, the level of working from home remains well above what it was before, especially in the public sector. This obviously has had a major impact on the business of city-centre pubs and bars. In response to this trend, the Daily Telegraph reports that Star Pubs and Bars, the retailing division of Heineken UK, h ..read more

A report by the World Health Organisation has claimed that Britain has the worst rate of child alcohol consumption in the world. Great Britain has the worst rate of child alcohol abuse worldwide, and more than half of children in England, Scotland and Wales have drunk alcohol by the age of 13, according to a report. The study, one of the largest of its kind by the World Health Organization (WHO), looked at 2021-22 data on 280,000 children aged 11, 13 and 15 from 44 countries and regions who were asked about alcohol, cigarettes and vape usage. The analysis found that Great Britain had a signif ..read more

The subject of children in pubs never fails to spark controversy, and there was an outbreak last week when the image shown above was widely shared on social media. Perhaps surprisingly, some of the strongest objections to this came from what might be called the “Christian Right”, with one commentator on Twitter stating: “Good luck with funding your pensions and finding someone to look after you when you're old and ill. Not sure that Fido is going to be much use then.” However, it should be pointed out that the birth rate was a lot higher in the days when children were not allowed in pubs. His ..read more

Much of the discussion around the concept of Fresh Ale has revolved around Carlsberg-Marston’s intention to dispense it via handpumps, which is unquestionably misleading given that it is a keg beer. However, what has been largely ignored is that it represents a perhaps rather clumsy attempt to provide a better choice to ale drinkers in venues where no cask beer is offered. A substantial number of pubs, for various reasons, now do not stock any cask ale whatsoever. In Stockport, this includes pretty much all the remaining working-class wet-led locals apart from those belonging to family brewer ..read more

Earlier this week, the Guardian published a rather self-contradictory article about the craft beer market. On the one hand, they say: For the time being at least, the demand is still there. A report from the independent brewers’ trade body Siba, due for release in May but shared with the Guardian, will show double-digit growth in production volumes. Increased output correlates tightly with sales, reflecting Britain’s enduring thirst for the complex and diverse flavours that the craft sector offers, particularly compared with mass-market rivals. But, on the other hand, they report: But competi ..read more

At CAMRA’s annual National Conference being held in Dundee later this month, the following motion has been put forward by Swale branch: This Conference agrees that oversized lined glasses should be mandatory for pubs and clubs to be entered into the Good Beer Guide. It therefore instructs the National Executive to ensure that licensees are aware of this change and shall be given until the 2026 edition to comply. My immediate reaction is “Good luck with that!” A better way of reducing the number of entries to double figures is hard to imagine, although obviously it would make life a lot easier ..read more

Last week, we were treated to the advice from NHS doctor Andrew Kelso that over the holiday period we really shouldn’t eat an Easter egg all at once, which was greeted with predictable and justified ridicule. Yes, maybe it isn’t really a good idea, but does this really need saying? This was then followed by a gratuitous warning from the Foreign Office to England fans travelling to Germany for Euro 2024 to be careful with German beer as it is often considerably stronger than that in the home country. Fifty years ago, when most British beer was below 4% ABV, and many fewer people travelled abro ..read more