The Beer Alliance – a lobby group of interested parties including the big brewers – is trying to summon up support for a petition supporting a cut (or no further increases) in UK beer duty. On strong lager this currently amounts to 95p a litre, which is a fair old part of the price.
They say three pubs a day are closing (although many of these are a result of the machinations of greedy pub companies and commercial landlords) and it’s time this stopped. Um, who does the actual closing?
Can’t see the UK government killing this cash cow any time soon. Anyway, Wetherspoons manages to sell beer for much less than a fiver a pint although in many more upscale London hostelries it’s heading for a tenner.
Havas London has been called in to do the honours in a £9m campaign ‘Long live the local’ and it’s back to the days when pubs were smoke-filled rooms (although no real smoke here of course).
One suspects, if not a real smoke-filled room, something of a smokescreen.
MAA creative scale: 5.
