December 2007

This story was on the front page of the Telegraph yesterday. Although it talks about proposals and consultations, I believe that the general tone of the UK government suggests that they will reduce the legal limit for drink driving. It allows them to be shown to be ‘doing something’, and it suits certain medical lobby groups in their agenda to reduce drinking overall. Let’s take it as read that this will be done. What are the likely consequences ?

When you are starting a new business like a brewery, stories like this catch the eye because the regulatory environment that exists when you start can either kill or support a particular business model. Please note that I said business model rather than business, because a business can always change what it is doing in response to regulation. What is the appropriate response for a brewery in a country where one pint may put you over the legal driving limit ?

I will brew stronger beers. Much stronger beers.

I’m an occasional pub goer as well as a brewer and as a matter of fact the last time I went down to the pub after work on Friday with friends. I had a pint and after an hour or so, a half, and after a further hour walked back to my car (an additional 20 minutes) and drove home safely and I believe, legally. Now in fact it’s an excellent pub, with a wide range of real ales and continental bottled beers. There were several I would have liked to try, and several that were rather stronger than the pint and a half that I did actually drink. Why was I so abstemious ? No other reason that I knew I had to be behind the wheel of a car later in the evening.

Now consider the situation where a pint may well take me over the limit. I value my driving license and so the fact that I’m in a pub at all now means that I’ve made alternative travel arrangements for getting home. If it’s not clear whether a pint takes me over the limit I certainly won’t take the risk. Because I don’t have to worry about driving, I am now free to drink what I like. It was a jolly occasion and I certainly would have had two pints, possibly even three. I also believe that stronger beers at 5.5% through to 6% tend taste better than weaker 3.5% to 3.9%, so my choices would probably have been towards the stronger end of the spectrum.

At Adur Brewery Ltd. (we incorporated last week Yay!) we are currently developing three recipes, Merry Andrew, our strong winter ale, A refreshing wheat beer for the summer, and a bitter (tentatively named ‘Velocity’) for all year round. Velocity has a targeted ABV of around 3.6% to 3.9% – we haven’t decided yet. The main problem is achieving this while packing in enough flavour that we can live with it. I can’t see the point of producing a beer that I wouldn’t want to drink myself. Velocity is the beer that I would choose if I know I’ve got to drive a bit later on, and its the one I would stick with over a long session because I can metabolize the low levels alcohol quickly enough to keep me within the legal limit.

Now, a low ABV beer keeps less well, sells for less money and in fact it is less profitable for the brewery, as well as less profitable for a publican. You can argue the toss on whether you might sell higher volumes and improve overall profitability that way – but for me the compelling argument actually revolves around flavour. I speculate that these beers are largely bought by people who are wary (and rightly so) about drink driving. In other words, they are prepared to put up with less flavour in order to drive safely. If you remove this pressure, the sales of low alcohol beers will drop in favour of better tasting, better keeping, higher ABV beers.

{ 1 comment }