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.

Cheers! Beer Tax down again

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