Not budging?

Ok, so the rumour mill was wrong about the chancellor changing beer duty differentials according to strength, but what we got instead was the predictable 4p increase on a pint. The government will argue that this is simply in tune with inflation, and by so doing forget that they are supposed to prevent rather than encourage inflation.

What really happens is that beer prices rise by far more than the increase in duty. So 4p inevitably means 5p at the very least in the pub, and on occasion, with less scrupulous - or sensible - landlords, 10p or even 20p. For example, I had a pint of Pedigree in the Northumberland Arms near Warren Street tube in London yesterday - the day the duty increase went into effect - and they had already put their prices up to the extent that it cost me £3.80!

Now, it was a nice pint and I was thirsty so I paid it uncomplainingly - it is hardly part of British pub etiquette to refuse to pay the going rate after your pint has been poured. But there was one crucial side-effect: it was a warm day, and I felt like another. But I didn't have another. Not at that price, mate. Result: less profit for pub and landlord. Less beer for me, but there is another side to that to: read on.

This may just sound like me being mean or suffering from sour grapes. But I believe it is a greater part of the problem in the evil evolution of our drinking culture. A landlord friend of mine - who runs a fine establishment with exquisite beers, but who shall be nameless for obvious reasons - has said he can charge 'virtually anything' for his premium beers. And that, perversely, is the point: when people go out (to the pub) now they see it as an occasion, an evening to be enjoyed at all costs. It has become, in other words,  a special occasion, rather than part of their regular routine: instead of going 'down the pub' several nights a week for a couple of relaxing beers and a chat with their partner or to meet fellow locals, they see it as an occasion to go out and 'party'. And that, in the American-derived sense which is what most Britons understand these days, means to get wasted!

In other words, high beer prices may look like discouraging excessive consumption, while happily providing more profits for landlords and breweries, but in fact they do the exact reverse in both cases. Pubgoers go the pub less frequently - resulting in lower profits over a monthly viewpoint and more evenings with empty pubs - and when they do, to make the most of it, they drink to excess. They binge!

But asking a politician or anti-alcohol campaigner to get their head around that bit of joined-together thinking is like complaining about the price of a pint after you've drunk it.