Comments on: Tumbling UK pub sales not the whole story

By: UK Pub Sales Agent

UK Pub Sales Agent — Fri, 08 May 2009 12:14:20 +0000

The main reasons for the demise of UK pub culture must surely be the ’smoking ban’ and supermarkets selling beer at below cost price.

People in the UK still want to drink beer but they want to drink it on thier own terms.

By: Stan Hieronymus

Stan Hieronymus — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:26:49 +0000

Remember that she is writing for a UK audience, and not trying to be all encompassing. The future of the pub – which is still a much stronger institution in the UK than the US – is an ongoing discussion that many who read her blog have seen plenty about.

I think it is fair to stop at emphasizing a) that focusing on tumbling beer sales sends a bad message and b) multinationals aren’t very good at serving a specialty market.

The points you make are valid, but I don’t think we need mark her down for not going into all of that.

By: Alan

Alan — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:07:32 +0000

I think my point, in case you are interested, is that she has not made her point very well. It is not a vague generic cultural change that pubs are not as popular any more than saying AM radio has lost something of its lead in the technology race is or is not related to the slump in sales for the music recording industry. The best point is made in a comment to the BBC story – pubs do not exist in the way they did years ago. Craft beer will live or die in the future drinks sales marketplace competing for home sales given the shift on both sides of the Atlantic away from tenements or two-ups-two-down to homes which are social centres.

By: Stan Hieronymus

Stan Hieronymus — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:00:18 +0000

Alan – I agree that the demise of pub culture is important, and a large part of this issue. In this case I just wanted to focus on the points Cole makes.

The BBC magazine article with a link at the end list “cultural changes” (including pub life) as one of its five reasons. I’d say some of the others are also cultural changes.

By: Alan

Alan — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 21:45:13 +0000

Isn’t the better comparator the stat cited in Ken Well’s Travels with Barley that in, say, the 1970s three-quarters of beer drunk in the US was in bars while in the early 2000s it was down to 25%? That information about place of consumption is different from what is being consumed which you quite rightly say is more and more craft beer.