Avoiding the elephant

Beer sales were up for the first time in 4 years hurrah! It's thought that the world cup and a warm summer has helped, according to a report in the Quarterly Beer Barometer.The problem being of course that beer sales only went up in Supermarkets, not in pubs, though the report doesn't focus on why that might be.

Cheer for beer, as World Cup and weather boosts beer sales
30.07.2010

• Total beer sales up 2.9 per cent
• First like-for-like quarterly rise for four years
• Pub beer sales down 6.3 per cent on last year, but up on first quarter
• Supermarket and off-licence beer sales increase by 13.7 per cent

Beer has enjoyed the first like-for-like quarterly increase in sales for four years, according to the latest UK Quarterly Beer Barometer.
Beer sales in the second quarter were up by 2.9 per cent on last year; the first like-for-like quarterly rise since the second quarter of 2006.

More than 2.2 billion pints were sold during April to June, the best performance since the fourth quarter of 2008, with the World Cup providing a welcome boost. Beer sales were 625 million pints up on the first quarter and 63 million pints up on the same period in 2009.
Pub beer sales were down 6.3 per cent on the same period in 2009. However, sales were 166 million pints up on the first three months of 2010, the first rise since the second quarter of 2009. Almost 1.1 billion pints were sold in pubs during April to June compared with 923 million in January to March.
Sales in supermarkets and shops rose by 13.7 per cent in the second quarter. Year-on-year sales are also up by 4.4 per cent.
Year-on-year the beer market is down 1.4 per cent - a significant slowdown in the rate of decline and the best result since the second quarter of 2006.

With the Treasury currently conducting a Review of Alcohol Taxation the BBPA believes these pub beer sales figures make a compelling case for a sustained freeze in beer tax in order to help community pubs, which the coalition Government has pledged to support in the tax review.

You'll notice that no-one in the beer trade has mentioned the elephant in the room, they mention that a long term trend of people drinking at home, but they don't mention a major reason why. That reason is of course the practical banning of smokers from pubs and although it's possible in summer to enjoy a cigarette outside a lot of pubs, come the winter smokers simply wont bother, they'll buy their drinks in a supermarket and drink at home or invite friends around, after all why should they go somewhere they're obviously not wanted.
Personally I don't smoke myself, but it's never bothered me that other people I know do or did, though some ex smokers do find it to be a problem. No I've never been bothered by passive smoking and if the dept of health records are to be believed then I shouldn't be either, seems no-one has ever died because of it, though this might just be a case of litigation avoidance. Still it has been noticeable that pub sales are down since Labour lied about a partial ban and exemptions for certain places and decided to go the whole hog and turn a legal pastime into the equivalent of social pariahdom. It's costing them money too, tax revenues are down, though they have shifted their targets to drinkers and fatties, but again they'll lose revenue because of that too.
Perhaps one day we'll get a government that will leave us alone to do pretty much as we want so long as we're harming no-one else. I'm not going to hold my breath on it ever being a Lib/Lab/Con one though.