March/April 2020

Very Early Doors

Extended licensing hours give people the freedom to use pubs at times that suit them

THE DETERMINED band of drinkers who assemble in the average Wetherspoon’s at 9 am are often viewed with a mixture of amusement, derision and pity, and singled out as an example of the downside of extended licensing hours. However, if you actually look at what they’re doing, they’re not settling in for an all-day session: many will be gone at lunchtime, and pretty much all by mid-afternoon. This isn’t all that different from the regular sessions straight through from teatime to 11 pm that used to be entirely normal. In many cases they will only be drinking at a leisurely pace too.

There was recently an outbreak of moral panic in the media when it was reported that a non-Wetherspoons pub in Great Yarmouth was even offering a happy hour from 9 am to 11 am. But the reality, as reported by the “Eastern Daily Press”, was more a general feeling of conviviality. One customer said “I love the atmosphere in here and it's great to catch up with my mates. The pints are cheap and everyone is in good spirits”, while a barmaid commented “Everyone knows each other in here and they just have a laugh. There's no trouble.” Isn’t that what pubs are supposed to be all about?

Other customers gave safety as a reason for coming out earlier. One said “I don't feel safe coming into the town any later. There are too many yobs on the streets and who knows what might happen”, and another added “It's not safe for someone like me who has health problems to come to the pub in the evening.” These fears may seem a touch exaggerated, but many towns that encourage a lively nightlife do develop a distinct “atmosphere” later in the evening that makes older drinkers feel uncomfortable.

It may not be something that appeals to you or me; it’s unlikely to meet with the approval of the public health lobby, and it’s certainly not compatible with holding down a full-time job. But isn’t this really just a case of the liberalisation of licensing hours opening up opportunities for people to go to the pub at times that suit them? Rather than laughing or sneering at the early-morning drinkers, shouldn’t we just accept that people now have the freedom to use pubs in different ways, and at different times of day?

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Measure for Measure

Even if you don’t drink it in pints, price per pint is still the way to compare beer prices

YOU SOMETIMES see stories in the media expressing shock over some rare, mega-strong craft beer being sold in a bar for the equivalent of £22 a pint or thereabouts. This inevitably results in some people saying “why are you expressing it as a price per pint when it isn’t going to be drunk in pints?” Well, probably it isn’t, but that isn’t the point. For any commodity, if you’re making price comparisons, it’s still desirable to have a consistent yardstick, and given that the pint is the standard unit for draught beer then it seems sensible to use it. This line of argument comes across as trying to cover your embarrassment.

Wine prices are generally quoted by the bottle, even though you drink it by the glass. You often hear of expensive wines being "£100 a bottle" or suchlike. Likewise, in the supermarket, the prices of various cuts of meat are quote as price per kilogram, although nobody eats a steak that size. Anyone with any knowledge of beer is well aware that stronger beers cost more because of the higher duty and the greater amount of raw materials needed. But, locally, you can buy Robinson’s 8.5% Old Tom for the equivalent of £7 to £8 a pint in pubs, so in comparison anything over £20 still seems pretty eyewatering.

January/February 2020

Charge More, Sell Less

A premium pricing strategy will do nothing to help the long-term prospects of cask

LAST AUTUMN, the latest edition of the annual Cask Report was published. It recorded cask sales falling more quickly than beer volumes in total, with a 5% drop over the past year, and cask now only accounting for one in seven pints sold in pubs, whereas only a few years ago it was one in six. The report argues that the way to combat this trend is to move towards “premiumisation”, in terms of quality, price and strength. But is that a realistic strategy, or just wishful thinking?

Quality should be taken as a given, and it’s certainly true that inconsistent and often downright poor beer is one of the key reasons deterring people from drinking cask. It is sometimes argued that higher prices will give brewers and pubs more to invest in quality, but that really is putting the cart before the horse. You can’t command a price premium until you have achieved that consistent quality, and at present drinkers won’t pay top dollar for a product that is often something of a lottery. Plus, by charging more, you will inevitably sell less, which may well make the quality issues even worse. Cask is a perishable product that is critically dependent on turnover. It is ill-suited to occupy a low-volume niche.

The historical reason that cask sells at a discount to keg ales and lagers is that it was originally the standard beer in pubs. Keg beers commanded a premium both because they were new innovations and because they incurred more processing and storage costs, with pasteurisation, cooling and CO2 cylinders. Although cask is often portrayed as “better”, it doesn’t inherently cost any more to make than keg, and, while it does take a little more care in the cellar, it isn’t really that difficult to keep well so long as you stick to a few simple rules.

Most cask is consumed by ordinary drinkers, not beer enthusiasts. It is usually the staple ale brand in pubs and is compared with lagers and smooth ales, not with craft keg. Many cask drinkers are people on a limited budget who have little scope to absorb hefty price increases. If cask goes up by 50p a pint, they will switch to smooth or lager. The report says that 59% of drinkers agreed in a poll that cask should cost more, but in practice would they be happy to pay it? In any case, cask beer isn’t exactly cheap at the moment, with the £4 pint very common now. The major exception is Wetherspoon’s, who are the single biggest retailer of cask beer, and an aggressive discounter, which makes it very difficult to shift the perception of the market.

The aspiration to move cask to a higher strength band also seems unrealistic. Yes, in general stronger beers are perceived as “premium” and can command higher prices, but there’s a limit to how much of them people want to drink. Most pub customers want to pace their drinking over a few hours, or will be going on to do something else later, and so don’t want anything too mindblowing. Pubs find it difficult to sell much cask beer above 4.5% ABV: if stronger beers are drunk at all, it’s often just one at the end of the evening.

With effort, premium pricing can certainly be achieved for individual brands and pubs, and for some this may represent a sensible business plan. But it’s just not going to happen for the category in general, and I get rather tired of commentators arguing that cask should cost more while displaying a failure to appreciate the reality of the market on the ground.