Beer Tourism on the rise

RUNAWAY... to Manchester and be part of the growing Craft Beer scene

HAVING been on the verge of a collapse a few years ago, Britain’s well-loved pubs are now becoming a key attraction for tourists.

Of the 34.6million tourists to visit last year from abroad, around 13million visited a pub to experience what is commonly seen as a British stereotype, but not just to have a photo in the likes of The Rovers Return or The Queen Vic.

Beer Tourism has always kindled an interest among beer enthusiasts, whether that be trying a pint from a particular brewer from another region like Thwaites in Lancashire, or spending a weekend in Germany.

But the recent growth in craft beer is something that has really captivated people who are keen to try some of the 5,000 brands of beer that now exist in the UK.

“Beer tourism is becoming a really big thing now, with people coming to the UK where traditionally everyone buggered off to Belgium for two weeks to go and drink Belgian beer,” says Mark Welsby, co-founder of Runaway Brewery in Manchester, “but people are now coming to the UK because the beer scene is exciting… That’s pretty cool!”

Showcasing Runaway’s facilities and beer at Shebeen Festival, Mark mused: “Maybe meet the brewer and all that kind of stuff instead of going to a gig?

“I mean it’s happening already isn’t it?” he continued. “Some of the beer festivals we’ve seen coming up, IndyMan Beer Conference; it’s on every October, it’s probably the most influential craft beer festival in the UK now, and people literally come from all over Europe to come to that festival.”

Last year over 3,000 people visited the festival at Victoria Baths in Manchester over the four days, with 47 different breweries ranging from all over the UK, as well as accommodating European breweries from Italy, Denmark, Spain and The Netherlands, plus some brewers from the biggest consumer and producer of craft beer in the world, the USA.

Festival organiser Jonny Heyes explains “The beer world is a dynamic industry, more women and young people are drinking beer and it’s losing it’s stuffy, old man image, yet something was lacking in Britain’s beer festivals so we thought we’d change that."

BlackJack Brewery was one of the venues for this year's festival

There was also music and art on show to exhibit the elements
Keystone will bring to the Green Quarter

15 new breweries have opened across Greater Manchester in the last 18 months, and the emergence of these festivals is starting to open up the scene which until now has been very London based, with London Craft Beer Festival (August) and London Beer Week (February) being the only major festivals showcasing the growing Craft Beer scene.

“I hope Manchester leads the way, certainly,” says Mark, who exhibits at both IndyMan and Shebeen, as well as supplying many local pubs across Manchester.

“It’s a modern progressive city, it always has been, so it makes sense in lots of ways for it to be at the forefront of that.”

A unique network of pubs is one of the things the British Beer and Pub Association says makes the experience attractive, and that the way they are evolving to include traditional food and accommodation will only add to that and ‘make for a great opportunity for this niche in our tourism market to grow further’.

A spokesperson added: “We have worked hard to get the tourism authorities to put beer and pubs at the heart of our tourism offering, and they have responded positively.

“For beer lovers, we have a great variety of styles and many that offer something quintessentially British, with our bitters, golden ales, porters, IPAs, stouts and milds.”

Binge Drinking numbers down, but data suggests North/South divide

A NORTH-South divide is often something associated with wealth, but ironically it’s also a difference when it comes to the latest figures for binge drinking.

The stats, collected and published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), show an overall drop in the number of people who binged in the previous week, although that comes as a result of more young adults claiming to have binged less, with the other categories seeing a slight increase.

Young adults were again the stand out category in the number of people claiming to be teetotal, becoming equally as likely to drink no alcohol as over 65s.

It follows the same trend as the number of young adults saying they were frequent drinkers, a statistic which has fallen by more than two-thirds since 2005.

Chief Executive of DrinkAware, Elaine Hindal, commented on the trend, saying: “The increased number of those choosing not to drink alcohol could be down to a range of factors including better education about the health impact of drinking to harmful levels, increasingly ethnically diverse communities and the cost of living.”

However she highlighted the divide as ‘a cause for concern’, adding: “The figures suggest people in the north of England and Scotland are more likely to have binged than adults elsewhere in Great Britain.

“People may not realise that drinking two large glasses of wine in one day for women, or three pints of strong beer for men is regarded as binge drinking and has consequences for health," she finished.

As a nation famed for it’s beer and pubs, there has been a significant shift away from from that sort of culture to a more active, health conscious one.

In fact figures released by the Leisure Database Company showed gym memberships exceeding 8million for the first time ever in Britain for 2014.

Taking that and the increasing population of other ethnic communities that are forbidden to drink alcohol into consideration, it is really no surprise that this trend is occurring.

Student Culture

Despite the figures though, one of the other trends visible on the map is the consistency of student cities showing above-average figures for binge drinking.

While younger people drink less frequently than older people, they drink more on those occasions, and that can still cause severe health problems.

A study carried out by research group Alcohol Research UK suggested that participation in sports teams is associated with higher levels of alcohol consumption, particularly those who were sponsored by alcohol-related businesses.

The findings also showed that while 4% of the people surveyed were alcohol abstainers, the remaining Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test scores were higher in sports teams when compared to a similar study carried out on University students in general.

This was confirmed in my own survey of about 40 students, with 11 out of 18 people who drank more than eight units of alcohol per week believing that being part of a sports society influences the amount they drink.

“From experience it is stated that drinking is not compulsory, but it is very hard to fit in without doing so,” commented one male participant, while another added “Yes, we are contractually obliged to go to Bierkeller once a month to get drunk.”

Interestingly though, an extra five people said that just being part of a society was enough to influence their drinking habits, while 59% of participants felt that being a student was in itself a reason for drinking more alcohol.

To see more from the survey, click here.

Cost of Binge Drinking

There is still a massive issue with the amount of money alcohol abuse can cost, with the latest figures from the Department of Health suggesting alcohol-fuelled harm can cost the government around £21billion a year.

A staggering £2.8billion of that is burdened on the NHS, including treatments of diseases and illnesses caused by alcohol, although there has been a significant 17% drop in the number of people having to stay overnight as a result of drinking from 2011/12 to 2012/13.

However alcohol-related admissions are again up for the last year, continuing the trend which has resulted in a 37% increase in admissions over the last decade, and contradicting data which suggests that overall consumption is down.

Again figures suggest that there is more of a problem in the North with 820 per 100,000 people in the North East being admitted to hospital, compared to 490 per 100,000 in the South East. The national average for England is 610 admissions per 100,000 people.

Attitudes to alcohol changing as underage drinking continues to fall

WHILE the number of pupils who drink alcohol continues to fall as it has over the past decade, it appears that attitudes are also changing as they become more aware.

The latest figures from campaign group Drinkaware show that around 39% of pupils between 11 and 15 years-old had drunk alcohol at least once, which is down from 61% in 2003 and the lowest since the start of the survey in 1988.

However 72% of 15-year-olds admitted to having tried alcohol, which suggests that as pupils near the legal drinking age of 16 they are more inclined start drinking.

Elaine Hindal, Chief Executive of Drinkaware, described it as ‘encouraging’ that less teenagers were drinking, but after a survey among parents showed that 54% gave their children alcohol, she sent out a warning about the possible effects that could have:

“No parent wants to think of their child out on their own being drunk and vulnerable, but effectively that is what we could be facilitating by giving alcohol as a reward.

“It is illegal for parents to purchase alcohol on behalf of someone under 18. Worse still, it normalises a culture of excessive drinking among young people.”

Also according to the survey, which was last updated in 2013, more than half of pupils thought it was okay for someone their age to try drinking alcohol with about a fifth obtaining it from their parents, and another 19% from friends.

“I think it’s alright to try it once or twice but I don’t think it should be a regular thing and I don’t think you should get really drunk,” said the only girl in a focus group of four 15-year-old pupils, who was also concerned about the safety of first time drinkers.

Another cited the impact of advertising, rather than education, as an influence on his thoughts:

“I think people are more aware, those adverts that are like think and stuff, and they’ve recently got a new one out haven’t they, and it’s a guy where he’s driving when he’s drunk and stuff.

“It makes you think if you were in that situation then that could be your life over because of a drink.”

The Law

Drinking laws in the UK state that no person under 18 years of age may buy, or attempt to buy, alcohol, nor must they ask someone to buy it for them or drink alcohol in licensed premises.

However if you are 16 or 17 and accompanied by an adult, you may drink beer, cider or wine with a meal.

Half of the focus group knew roughly what the law was in terms of being able to drink alcohol under 18, but the others were only aware of being legally allowed to buy and drink alcohol once they were over 18.

Under 18s can be stopped, fined or arrested by police if caught drinking alcohol in public.

Health Impact

None of the focus group were aware of the exact potential consequences if they were caught drinking, and none of them were particularly mindful of the damage drinking can do to health, particularly at a younger age.

“Where people get sent to hospital for being too drunk then that’s too far, but yeah I think it’s fun with your mates,” said one of the boys, and another adding:

“I’ve never put too much thought into it because I don’t drink every weekend as some people do.

“I don’t do it enough for it to hurt me in the long term, maybe in the short term but i’ll be alright; I just don’t worry about it hurting me, like my kidneys or anything.”

The Chief Medical Officer’s recommendation is that children should have an alcohol-free childhood, or if that cannot be achieved the onset should be delayed for as long as possible. 

If 15-17 year olds do drink it should be no more than once a week, it should not be more than the recommended daily allowance for adults, and it should be under the supervision or a parent or carer.

EXCLUSIVE: Living with alcohol

Don't suffer in the dark: if you are concerned, help
is available. Credit: Qhairizad SayHello

LIVING with an alcohol-dependent partner can be difficult, particularly when they become abusive, but there are still not enough people coming out to report it.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that after falling between 2004/5 and 2008/9, the number of domestic abuse cases reported has levelled out over the last five years, and that 21.5% of people in the UK have admitted to experiencing some form of Domestic Abuse since the age of 16.

One of the primary associations with domestic abuse is alcohol, although charity Women's Aid say it is used as an excuse and is not a cause, even though the proportion of attacks known to police involving alcohol remains at a consistent 53%.

However there are different forms of domestic abuse which are also attributable to alcohol. Mrs. B’s husband became alcohol-dependent in the summer of 1976, and his habit got worse after a health scare which eventually led to him becoming an offender.

“He almost died and needed several major operations, but it was months and months of recovery and I think that led to him being depressed,” she re-called.

“Afterwards he started to drink more and more… It was a way of escaping what had happened to him, and he became dependent, progressing to drinking throughout the day.”

But that was only the start. Alcohol consumption figures show a correlation between the amount people drink and their employment status, with unemployed people drinking more at more regular intervals than those who are employed.

“When made redundant after his company closed down, he drank all day almost and then into the night. He would be in the pub for hours on end, socialising with awful people who were drunks too," said Mrs. B, which was the point her marriage and relationship with her husband hit a low.

She added: “He was drunk most of the time, and our lives were awful. His behaviour changed, he displayed more awkward behaviour, moaned about silly things, and said very nasty things to people and the lovely man I married becomes someone horrible.

“I thought so often I could not continue to live this way, but when you love someone it is difficult to just up and leave although I threatened to do so many times," she admitted.

Luckily for Mrs. B her husband was never violent, but Domestic Abuse does not have to be violent or sexual, and can take other forms including financial, emotional and psychological, and as in this case, verbal abuse.

In 2000, Mr. B stopped drinking after attending Alcoholics Anonymous courses and remained teetotal for five years.

“It helped enormously, his behaviour improved and he was back to being pleasant and considerate and amusing… His usual personality without drink,” explained Mrs. B, but it wasn’t the end of the drink.

“For the past 10 years he has been drinking beer only," she continued. "Initially he thought socially he could have a little beer and that he was strong enough to keep it controlled, but he now drinks far more beer than he should and quite contrary to strong medical advice to limit it and to have days off.”

Following life-saving heart surgery, which can only be performed once, Mrs. B has been trying to encourage her husband to at least have days off and limit consumption to preserve his health, but even that is a struggle.

“He promises and promises he will and says he will have days off next week… But next week never comes or at least the days off or reduction never come.”

“I talk to the doctor and have talked to the consultant, to tell them clearly what the reality is where my husband tries to talk down his consumption of alcohol, but what I know from experience is that the person needs to decide to get help or to be referred,” she conceded.

Having lived with it for nearly 40 years, Mrs. B has almost become accustomed to her husband’s habits to the point she just has to deal with it.

“I can tell when he arrives home whether he is going to be horrid. I hate this and it upsets me, his close family, and everyone around us. We all worry about him and the effect on his health.

“If they do not want to stop, I do think it impossible.”

The above is a true and ongoing story, but the interviewee did not wish to be identified. If you are concerned about a partner, relative or friend, help is available through a number of charities including Refuge and Women's Aid.

Craft Beer Revolution

Pour for me, pour for you: 15 new breweries have
opened across Greater Manchester in the last 18 months

CRAFT BEER is one of the latest trends to emerge on the UK’s drinking scene over the last year, popular for their unique cross between an ale and a lager, and brimming with flavour.

Having been at a lowly 800 in 2011, the number of breweries in the UK now stands at just over 1,100, and that is thanks in no small part to the revolution of Craft Beer, which has also had an impact on the 1.3% increase in beer sales recorded in 2014.

“There is a real appetite both for drinking it and brewing it, and being involved in the industry,” said Mark Welsby, one of the founders of Manchester’s Runaway Brewery which set up last year.

“I wanted to do something that I knew I would enjoy doing, that I could motivate myself to do, so brewing gave me an opportunity to do all that and to work in an industry which is very collaborative.”

Microbrewing itself isn’t new as people have been brewing their own drinks in kitchens and cellars for a long time with kits starting from as little as £20, but on a commercial scale people are starting to see more and more varieties from different brewers.

“Before this kind of modern Craft Beer scene, I suppose to a large degree bigger breweries saw microbreweries as a bit of an anomaly,” continued Mark.

“Perhaps slightly funny eccentric people doing in their garage what they did on a big scale.”

That is how another of Manchester’s growing number of breweries, ShinDigger, started out as co-founder George Grant, 24, explained:

“So basically I was living with my business partner Paul, and in our third year of living together and our final year of University we just thought it would be a fun thing to do actually.

“We put in about £100 each to buy a home brew kit, initially with the idea that it would just be a laugh and make beer cheaper at a time when we were students and didn’t have very much money.”

The Rebel Revolution

Watt have you been drinking? BrewDog's 'mission' is to make
others as passionate about good beer as they are. Credit: BrewDog

The inception of Craft Beer to the UK market goes back a little bit further though, and a few hundred miles north to Scotland where BrewDog first launched in 2007.

“BrewDog was born out of a frustration with the state of beer in the UK,” said James Watt, co-founder of the brewery.

“As fans of the American Craft Beer scene, we both disliked the bland, yellow fizzy lagers and stuffy ales that seemed to constitute ‘beer’ in most British pubs and off licenses.”

The decline in the number of pubs has been well documented, falling from 60,600 in 1997 to approximately 49,500 in 2015, although that is an increase on a low of just over 48,000 in 2013.

Of those 49,500, around 18,000 pubs are privately owned which represents what Mark believes has been a problem in the industry as chain-owned pubs, or ‘PubCos’ have multiplied.

“How many pubs have you been to where you’ve got the same five or six drinks on all the time? Guinness, Carling, if you’re lucky maybe some continental lager of some description,” he asked.

“That isn’t choice, there is virtually no difference between a lot of those products other than branding.

“What the Craft Beer scene is doing is saying ‘look at the variety, look at all the weird and wonderful things you can do with beer to actually go with food instead of having wine, or you might have it aged in spirit casks; all sorts of stuff to get lots and lots of different flavours, so it kind of challenges what peoples’ perceptions of beer is, and that to me is very exciting.”

                        

In eight years BrewDog has grown enormously as a result of it's popularity, boasting 28 bars worldwide and over 15,000 shareholders in it’s Equity for Punks crowdfunding scheme, which allowed James and his partner Martin Dickie to raise the money needed to open a new brewery in 2012.

“Our Equity for Punks shareholders are our biggest advocates and ambassadors, and it’s that advocacy that brings in new recruits in the craft beer revolution,” continued James, after stating how BrewDog’s mission is to make people as passionate about ‘great’ beer as they are.

“Breweries like Anchor Steam and Sierra Nevada in the US have proven that craft beer breweries can be scaled up without losing their quality and passion, and the equipment in our new facility doesn't replace any of the human interaction with beer. 

“The brewing process remains exactly the same; the equipment and scale just helps us to meet the demand for our beers,” he added, although some brewers like Mark are wary about just how big a brewery can get before it does start to have an effect.

“I could see us probably trebling in size, maximum, but after that you really do get to the point where you’re no longer able to use ingredients in the same way and in the same numbers without it really starting to affect your margins and your costs.”

Doing it differently

For ‘gypsy brewers’ ShinDigger, scaling and expansion isn’t particularly a problem as they don’t own their own brewery. 

Instead they outsource and use other breweries to produce their beer at, leaving more experienced brewers to do the day-to-day care for the beer while they turn up on brew days to make it.

“One of the advantages [to gypsy brewing] is that you can scale very quickly because instead of having to invest in new kit you can just brew at another brewery, or go to a new brewery to brew,” said George, who graduated from the University of Manchester with a degree in International Business.

“We’ve come at it from a very different angle to everyone else; we don’t necessarily see the growth of the business model to be the same way, so that’s why we gypsy brew. 

“Most people don’t gypsy brew for as long as we do, but what we’re passionate about is spreading the message of Craft Beer and getting more people drinking good beer rather than drinking some of the s**t that’s out there.”

Innovation

One of the fantastic, if not sometimes confusing things about Craft Beer is that there is no specific definition of it in the UK, although there are certain values that the producers stick by which revolve around flavour, passion and a dislike for mass-produced lagers.

“Innovation doesn’t just stop with ingredients and we are building new ways of brewing beer here; we even have a hop cannon,” said James, who has broken headlines as well as boundaries with stunts including beer packaged in taxidermy, brewing at the bottom of the sea, and driving a tank through London.

He added: “People are also getting more savvy to marketing from the big breweries now, and are less likely to blindly assume a beer tastes good simply because there is a £50million advertising push behind it.”

At ShinDigger they are innovating in another way, and one of the initiatives just launched is a collaborative project where the brewery works with other people from different industries to launch and sell beer, as George describes.

“We want to do collaborations with other kind of elements of youth culture such as musicians, and we’ve got another one potentially lined up that is kind of like a lifestyle/website magazine thing, and it’s just a way to get our message out there.”

The first in the project is a collaboration with Manchester DJ and Producer Werkha, who launches his debut album this summer, and ShinDigger is releasing a Manchester Red Ale alongside the album, influenced by their connections to Manchester.

“So the idea is we make a beer with him, and then we’re getting out there to Werkha’s fans and at the same time to our fans, we’re getting out Werkha, so it’s mutually beneficial for both of us promoting each other because we both like what each other are doing.”

“I am the re-invention”

The young adult market has been a notoriously difficult one to penetrate for ale, with it’s ‘old man’ stigma, but in Craft Beer there is a new appeal that perhaps comes at a time when this generation is looking for it’s own identity and re-invention.

“I do think it’s an urban thing,” says George, “but I think that’s almost like a microcosm of society itself in the beer world where everything that happens in this country often stems, so new trends start in London, and then they spill out to the more liberal cities like Bristol, Manchester… Now you’re sort of seeing Manchester starting to put itself on the map with breweries like Cloudwater, then there’s a big crop of us coming through.”

Some comparisons have even been drawn to the 1980s and 90s, where Manchester reacted to the Thatcher government and re-invented itself, particularly in the music scene, and Mark would be happy to see a similar re-invention.

“I wonder whether this will be the beer decade, that would be brilliant.

“I hope Manchester leads the way because that would be great; it’s a modern progressive city and it always has been so it makes sense in lots of ways for it to be at the forefront of that.”

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RELATED LINKS:
ShinDigger: http://shindiggerbrewing.co/
Runaway Brewery: http://www.therunawaybrewery.com/
BrewDog: https://www.brewdog.com/

Cheers! Beer Tax down again

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