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Denormalisation of alcohol

lazythursday said:
And actually 4) for people I know, perhaps the worst change over the past couple of decades has been the normalisation of ever stronger beer and cider on tap, I might legislate on a percentage limit for those products.
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This is a problem as Sue has mentioned already

My dad likes bitter / ale around 4%, it’s hard to find this on tap / in supermarket when he visits, indeed often hard to find it below 5%. He has similar problems finding red wine that’s below 14%
 
lazythursday said:
What i'd actually do to denormalise alcohol is this:

1) do something with the tax regime to make it far cheaper to drink in pubs and more expensive to buy in shops than at present

2) restrict sales of alcohol off premises to a limited number of specialist shops (we could call them 'off licences'...). No booze aisles in supermarkets, no booze on sale in every deli and cinema and coffee shop etc.

3) only point of sale advertising allowed
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Make it more expensive to buy in shops?

Anyway I'm leaving. I'm not having idiots questioning my honour like this. No loss.
 
It's a good point. The expense of social drinking (pubs) certainly drove me to go to the shops, neck my cheap booze and chuff my fags alone in the garden. I already liked a drink, but I think this ultimately tipped me into new territory. No need to worry about closing time or to concern myself with saving some of my brain for the journey home.
It can't have just been me.
 
Curious to know how many people drink at home on the regular. And whether that means a glass of wine couple of times a week or passing out on the sofa pissed.
 
Silas Loom said:
That’s much too broad brush. What about tolerance of advertising and sponsorship and branded packaging? What about duty levels and minimum ages for consumption? There’s quite a gap between fags and booze on all of those, as it stands, although all three of your criteria are met for both.
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This is the big one. Personally I’d keep/make drugs, cigs, gambling and sex work legal but ban any form of advertising relating to the same. Certain things sell themselves. I’m appalled at how normalised gambling has become and the number of adverts on all media makes me sick. While it’s one vice I’ve never really understood, I’ve seen several friends gamble themselves into near destitution in a very short space of time. A trial initiative took place in N.Ireland in the early 00s that featured bookies setting up in certain pubs. If there was ever a recipe for disaster, that was it. Thankfully it got pulled pretty quickly but it was one cynical bastard who came up with that one.
 
It’s definitely being denormalised. My first two employers (80s and 90s) in very different sectors had bars in their larger buildings that were open for drinks at lunchtime and after work. It’s almost impossible to imagine now. Like smoking in the office.

My 20 something kids both drink though, so I don’t think it’s gone away.
 
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seeformiles said:
This is the big one. Personally I’d keep/make drugs, cigs, gambling and sex work legal but ban any form of advertising relating to the same. Certain things sell themselves. I’m appalled at how normalised gambling has become and the number of adverts on all media make me sick. While it’s one vice I’ve never really understood, I’ve seen several friends gamble themselves into near destitution in a very short space of time. A trial initiative took place in N.Ireland in the early 00s that featured bookies setting up in certain pubs. If there was ever a recipe for disaster, that was it. Thankfully it got pulled pretty quickly but it was one cynical bastard who came up with that one.
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Not sure that works for sex work, advertising (at least in principle) helps eliminate intermediaries, and smart policy should be to criminalise users rather than providers, the opposite of the sensible approach to drug and gambling trades.
 
Yossarian said:
Be snide if you want to, I just found your post a little jarring on a thread where dozens of people have posted openly about their issues with alcohol
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Dozens of people may well have posted in that vein, but others, and Humberto is certainly not the first, have been shouty and belligerent because they don’t like the thread’s focus. And if they said “this thread scares me because I am a drinker”, they would deserve more sympathy than they get for ranting about puritanism, cruelty to the poor, killjoys and so on.
 
Going back to workplace drinking, I briefly worked at a well known sector specialist London law form and when I was there they had recently changed their “new joiners drinks” to “new joiners afternoon tea”, this was partly to be more inclusive but there had also been a few incidents of inappropriate behaviour that had happened following drinks events.
 
Elpenor said:
Going back to workplace drinking, I briefly worked at a well known sector specialist London law form and when I was there they had recently changed their “new joiners drinks” to “new joiners afternoon tea”, this was partly to be more inclusive but there had also been a few incidents of inappropriate behaviour that had happened following drinks events.
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(((coeliacs)))
 
lazythursday said:
And actually 4) for people I know, perhaps the worst change over the past couple of decades has been the normalisation of ever stronger beer and cider on tap, I might legislate on a percentage limit for those products.
Click to expand...
Wine's got stronger over the past couple of decades too. Used to be that 11-12 per cent was normal wines, but then it started creeping up and 14 per cent isn't unusual for a red, sometimes 15 per cent.

Old World (European) wines tended not to be so strong*, it was the New World (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South America) eg big Australian Shirazes, that were 14, 14.5, 15 per cent, but then over the years they started getting stronger.

*Having said that, not sure whether eg Italian Barolos have always been so strong.

There's been a couple of factors resulting in alcohol levels going up, one being trends/fashion, as people liked those big New World wines, some Old World producers adapted to market dictates, I understand that was the case, at least to an extent, with Bordeaux wines, as I heard it not quite from the horse's mouth, but from a horse-adjacent mouth in Bordeaux itself.

The other is climate change. Sunnier weather equals riper fruit equals more sugars equals more alcohol. There's a fine balance to be struck. If you don't let the sugars convert to alcohol your residual sugars might be too high and your wine might be too sweet.

There's a certain amount of tweaking that can be done, especially with wines that use a blend of grape varietals, but I've just this week heard of a European wine producer buying equipment to reduce the alcohol levels in wine.

While there was an upward trend - and that will continue insofar as climate change is an ongoing issue - there are a couple of factors now pushing alcohol levels down, one being trends/fashion, many more consumers are wanting lower alcohol wines, drinks more generally.

And the other is alcohol duty levels - eg more duty is going to be payable on a wine that's 12, 12.5, 13, etc per cent than is payable on a wine 11 per cent or below. So winemakers are being asked for or they're offering, wines with lower ABV, because going up or down a percentage point or even half a percentage point from 12 or 11.5 down to 11 per cent can make a difference as to how much tax will be due.

An increase has been frozen by the government/HMRC, but is due to come into effect in February 2025.

At the moment:

"UK consumers currently pay £2.67 on duty for a bottle of 12.5% abv wine, compared to the French who pay just 3p equivalent a bottle irrespective of its strength...

the government also confirmed it will proceed with a new tax regime in February 2025, which will see duty on wine increase incrementally based on abv.

From February a single amount of duty paid on wines between 11.5 -14.5% abv, currently £2.67, will be replaced by up to 30 different payable amounts from £2.45 - £3.10 per bottle."

harpers.co.uk

Alcohol duty frozen till February 2025 - Harpers Wine & Spirit Trade News

The government dashed hopes of a cut to alcohol duty following the announcement of the Spring Budget today (6 March) by chancellor Jeremy...
harpers.co.uk harpers.co.uk
 
The problem with discussing how any given drug (and i agree with the poster years ago who said alcohol should be referred to as a drug) should be regulated is that people generally divide into two camps.

Either:

'This is a drug I enjoy. I use it responsibly' (might be true, might not be) 'and though others might have problems with it, this can be addressed by measures that do my not affect my preferred way of using it. IT'S MY RIGHT.'

'This is a drug I don't enjoy, because either I don't like the effect, or I liked it too much and had to give it up entirely. For this reason it should be banned or severely restricted, and I don't give a shit about anyone else's right to use it.'
 
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Elpenor said:
This is a problem as Sue has mentioned already

My dad likes bitter / ale around 4%, it’s hard to find this on tap / in supermarket when he visits, indeed often hard to find it below 5%. He has similar problems finding red wine that’s below 14%
Click to expand...
I'd recommend joining the Wine Society. Might make a nice gift for your Dad? It's a mutual.

1713607355500.png

 
Elpenor said:
This is a problem as Sue has mentioned already

My dad likes bitter / ale around 4%, it’s hard to find this on tap / in supermarket when he visits, indeed often hard to find it below 5%. He has similar problems finding red wine that’s below 14%
Click to expand...
What wines does your dad like, generally speaking, some wines do tend to be stronger, so if he's looking at New World, they will tend to be stronger, for reasons I mentioned in my previous post about wine strength.

I'd say something like a Pinot Noir, Gamay or Grenache might be lower alcohol than what he's been drinking, but they're probably going to be lighter-bodied than what he's used to.

Because it's a balancing act and the stronger alcohol level acts as a counterfoil to full-bodied elements in a wine. If you drank a medium or light bodied red wine that had a high alcohol level, it would be out of whack, similarly a full-bodied wine with much lower alcohol levels would be out of balance.

So if he's looking at bottles of the same style of wine hoping to find one of lower alcohol level, that's probably not going to work, he's going to need to look at different styles (country/region/grape varieties), maybe more Old World, like the ones I mentioned before, or maybe a younger Tempranillo or Garnacha, steer clear of fuller-bodied Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva, or a Merlot rather than a Shiraz.
 
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