The Grauniad Needs a Pint

There has been a bit of a stooshie recently, following the Guardian - without consulting anyone meaningful about the matter - suggests that we'd all be brighter eyed and more bushy tailed if we gave up pints in pubs. We should replace them by two third measures. Well? Really? Is this so?

Reporter Elle Hunt - me neither - is all in favour of it, so that's good at least. In what would best be described as a puff piece, she quotes as follows: "Researchers from the behaviour and health research unit at the University of Cambridge have recommended that the traditional British pint be abandoned in favour of the two-thirds measure.

After a trial in a dozen pubs, bars and restaurants in England, the study leader, Prof Theresa Marteau, concluded that the change – which led to nearly 10% less beer being sold and consumed – could reduce the impact of alcohol-related harm."I’m entirely in favour of the idea", says Elle, so we really should take a bit of notice, shouldn't we?  Well, no.

The Prof quoted is worried about heath. We drink too much don't we, so forcing us into drinking in smaller glasses would decrease beer sales, by 10%. Well with 50 pubs a month closing, that would certainly speed things up if that's your aim. The likely outcome wouldn't be good for the consumer either, It is likely, nay certain, that the outcome would be shrinkflation with the same being charged for less. And of course, home drinking, where most of the real harm occurs, would not be affected. Didn't spot that one Prof? We'll come back to you later.

However, Elle, isn't worried about that. She lists her reasons for disliking the pint.  This is now serious stuff. It is too big; it is unwieldy; you get bloated; the beer gets too warm before you get it down your neck; one intended pint usually end up being two, forcing you to drink over a litre of beer. How awful. This is compounded by this fatuous remark "Really, when you think about it, 568ml is an obscene amount of liquid to consume in one sitting – and 1,136ml even more so. It probably wouldn’t occur to you to drink more than half a litre of coffee, or milkshake, or kombucha at a time. So why is it the norm, in Britain, with beer – and despite the known harms?"  So there you have it. Obscene to drink over a litre of beer.

Elle tells us - she's Australian it seems - that in Sydney the schooner (not the same as two thirds actually)  is the norm and is widely accepted. I've got news for her. The pint, from my recent experience, is widely accepted too. In fact, in all the pubs around the harbour area, it was standard, though schooners were available. It was pretty much the same everywhere and though it varied from state to state, I don't recall many occasions where it wasn't available. 

If the argument is that two thirds measures should additionally be available, I wouldn't have much of an issue. Here in the UK, two thirds measures are pretty much confined to the craft beer sector, where strength is more likely to be higher. Normal pubs - and I use the word as a delineator, simply have no call for them, and it can also be argued that two thirds is a good way of disguising cost.

I've not forgotten the Prof whose team determined that if you give smaller measures that you sell less beer. (I think even the most casual primary school student of arithmetic could work that out.) Most beer in pubs though is used as an agreeable social lubricant, rather than something to get trashed on. If that's your aim, there are cheaper and quicker ways of doing so, rather than expensively necking pints of (mostly) weak beer. But the danger in all this nonsense is that it deflects from dealing with the real issues of alcohol abuse, which is, for those affected, absolutely dreadful.

Funnily enough, this daft piece has attracted much radio and other media attention. I have seen little support from subsequent public comments, though there have been some silly comparisons (small glasses in Düsseldorf for example) and many vacuous arguments, but such things are easy airtime, so we shouldn't be surprised. 

This is a fatuous article. Clickbait more than anything.  As Elle herself says, the pint has been around since 1698. I'm not for a second saying there isn't a problem, but is beer and the pint really the issue here? Let's just leave it alone and concentrate on tackling where real harm occurs, that is in unlicensed premises, like our homes and the social and political issues that surround alcohol abuse.

Oh, some stats about the UK and alcohol for perspective: 

UK is 27th for beer consumption in the world, with 67 litres per head of population. Well behind the leader, the Czech Republic, with 188.5 litres.

We don't make the top 15 for alcohol consumption in the world and, though I couldn't find exactly where we rank, we would be 18th in the EU if we were still in it.

We are 69th in the world for deaths attributed to alcohol, with 1.76 per 100, 00. (Germany is 25th with 4.32.)

Update: A more serious piece was published in the Guardian here today. It covers much of the ground I have covered, and features sensible stuff by Roger Protz and Pete Brown, but I've written this now, so here it is.

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Unser Burgerbrau

Bad Reichenhall is a charming little German town in the Bavarian Chiemgau Alps, noted in the past particularly for salt production. It is the capital of Berchtesgadener Land, set in spectacular forested countryside, not a million miles from Salzburg.

I first encountered it many years ago, cycling to it from the Alpine resort of Inzell in what can best be described as pissing rain.  It was in the early days of my long-lasting, but now defunct German cycling holiday phase and one of only two times I forsook the bicycle we had paid so much for. Both were for the same reason - the aforementioned pissing rain.  Our destination was Berchtesgaden, another charming (in a kind of colder way) Bavarian town , probably best known as the home of Hitler's Alpine redoubt, the Obersalzberg and its Kehlsteinhaus - also known as Hitler's Tea House.

After a horrible slog, in a torrent of rain, up countless Eiger like hills, we arrived, knackered and soaked in Bad Reichenhall and made for the nearest pub for much need liquid refreshment. I remember the relief and I thoroughly enjoyed the cloudy hefe-weizen brewed by the pleasingly named Unser Burgerbrau.  How do I know what I drank?  Well somehow, the distinctive glass - perhaps to cock a snook at the appalling German weather - found its way home with me and it took pride of place in Tandleman Towers for quite a few years. Back in Bad Reichenhall, we looked our maps and the waterfall of rain outside. Noting that the railway station was near and that Berchtesgaden was to be reached by even more precipitous alpine ascents, we decided. "Bugger this, we are getting the train."  And we did. And I've never regretted that decision.

Is there more to this tale? Well yes. A few years after acquiring the glass, while in bed one morning before work, while E made tea (my job these days and ever since), I heard a horrendous crash of broken glass. I immediately knew what had occurred having drank a hefe-weizen the night before. My treasured glass, on end to drain, had taken the knock by a sightless E, who had neither glasses nor contact lenses aboard at the time.

I was reminded of this a few days ago in Berlin at the Berlin Biermeile, when among the many beer stands, we came across one from Unser Burgerbrau. I was firstly uncommonly pleased that it is still on the go and secondly, I was determined, on this sunniest of days, to reaquaint myself with the thirst slaking hefe-weizen of that rain soaked day of yore.  Alas it wasn't to be. The hefe-weizen wasn't on sale.

Nor was it possible to pay the deposit and buy and keep a replacement Unser Burgerbrau Hefe-Weizen glass. They didn't have any. Some things are just not meant to be. 

It peed down in Berchtesgaden that first night too. I remember sitting in the almost deserted hotel dining room, when at about 9 o'clock, the waiter returned to our table with his coat on and gave us the bill.  The rain bounced back to knee height. Escape was impossible. We were in bed by 9.30. On a Saturday night too.

Our trip to the Kehlsteinhaus was completed in glorious sunshine. Our luck changed. We were the last group to enjoy the panorama (2600ft) before fog swept in rendering the views invisible.  

Glasses. Does it Matter?

One of the sessions I most enjoyed at The European Beer Bloggers Conference was that from Spiegelau, the German glass manufacturer, illustrating to those whose palates aren't entirely made of wood, that beer tastes and smells better out of a decent glass. Now these were particularly decent glasses, being as thin a a youthful beer blogger and unlike them, worth seven quid a pop. (Does that mean a youthful beer blogger is worth seven quid a pop or not?  At least that I'd say. Maybe even a couple of quid more in most cases.) It was an instructive session, not least of all because it fitted in with my way of thinking. Life is so much better when someone who should be in the know confirms your prejudices, though on a serious note, I did feel there were definite differences, one to the other for the same beer. The big bonus was that we were allowed to keep the set.

But of course my undoubted common sense isn't shared by all. I know many who simply don't care, provided that the liquid inside meets with their approval, or who just can't tell the difference. And it is, on the face of it at least, a fair point. Many think my liking for, for instance, a delicate lager in a tall, thin walled glass, is just a pettifogging affectation, but to me  it improves the beer no end.  Does the glass you drink out make the beer taste better or worse? By that I don't mean the minor annoyances (irritating though they are) of getting your pint of bitter in a Bulmer's Cider glass and the like, but when you get a beer that you "know" should be in a better glass and you get it in, for example,  a scratched old nonic, especially if you pay a few bob for said beer.  In my view the standard of glasses in the average British pub is atrocious, though getting slightly better. Problem is of course that when you get some decent glasses in, along comes some light fingered oik and nicks them.  Perhaps if they were more common, they wouldn't?

I wrote about this before, way back when. Have a look at it again and let me know what you think about the glass you drink from.

The Spiegelau glasses (pictured)are very fine and very fragile. They would be no use in a pub situation at all.