BRITAIN INVITED
TO "LET THERE BE BEER"
Beer industry unites to launch a campaign to bring
Britain back to beer
This year the British beer industry unites to
celebrate the very best of brewing. A new
TV advertising campaign has launched which calls for the country to back ‘Let
There Be Beer’ campaign and rediscover what's great about beer.
This collaboration comprises some of the world's
biggest brewing companies, national brewers, publicans, retailers, organisations
such as the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) and support from the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) and the Society of
Independent Brewers.
Let There Be Beer's
ambition is to reignite the public’s love of beer
and restore lagers, ales, bitters, pilsners and stouts firmly in the nation’s
heart, wherever they are enjoyed, whilst highlighting the significant role
brewing plays in supporting the economy.
Let There
Be Beer wants to encourage a
reappraisal of beer and will be focussing on demonstrating the diversity of the
category, with a big focus on pairing beer with food and celebrating the social
side of grabbing a beer with mates.
Simon Cox, from Let There
Be Beer, said "There is an ever more
diverse selection of beers available in our pubs and supermarket shelves. We've
seen the emergence of a more discerning beer drinker, a growth in
micro-breweries, as well as increased availability of beer
brands from all around the UK and the world. Two decades ago there were
around 2,000 brands of beer on sale in the UK compared to more than 5,000 on
sale today.
"Let
There Be Beer is about instilling a passion for beer in the nation’s hearts and remind the nation why beer is the nation's best-loved
drink. But for many, beer simply means pints of warm, flat lager. That couldn't
be further from reality!"
Jonathan Neame, chairman of
the British Beer and Pub Association, said: "Some consumers
have forgotten how much beer really means to them. We believe that’s a
travesty, as there’s nothing like a beer. Beer is irreplaceable – in its
flavour and diversity, in its culture and history, its ability to ground us and
help us to celebrate the good things in life and the happiest occasions…beer
and pubs are the original social network!"
A snapshot on how beer
consumption in Britain has changed in Britain:
Your life in beer
At university, the average
student drinks 1.8 times per week but what they choose is changing. There's
been a 58%[1]
rise in union bars requesting cask lager and students are also picking world
lagers, which are up by 17%[2].
Tastes change as our
tastebuds mature through life. As a result younger drinkers tend to opt for
standard lagers and lighter tastes. As our appetite for flavour develops,
drinkers seek out beers with more taste which is why we start to favour higher
ABV beers and ales as we get older. Drinkers between 25 – 35 tend to be the
most experimental with new flavours before settling into a favourite brand as
they get older. Are you 32? Then you're at your peak drinking age, 42%[3]
of 32 year-olds have a drink a week versus an average of 32%.
Lager vs. Ale
Lager is Britain's beer of
choice with over 5.2bn[4]
pints sold every year. But cask ale has been growing in popularity over the last
decade as consumers hunt out locally produced pints.
Home vs. Pub
The nation is now closing
in on the 50% tipping point of drinking just as often in their own home as they
do down the local. In the 1960s the average age of when drink consumption
shifted to the home was 52 years-old, this has declined sharply to aged 23 in
2010. This has been driven by a stark improvement in home entertainment options
and changes in alcohol pricing.
Brands
Consumers are now more
willing than ever to experiment, with 46%[5]
willing to try a new brand of lager.
Regions
The nation has an
impressive brewing heritage. Here are a few regional facts:
Stout is more popular in London than
anywhere else in the UK which probably harks back to its introduction to
British shores in 1700 London.
Barley is grown bountifully in East Anglia,
which is the most popular region for British ale which is made using these
malts.
Kent is well-known for hop growing and is
home to Britain's oldest brewery, Shepherd Neame.
Britain took a while to fall in love with
lager, but now it commands three quarters of the beer market.
Back in the 1930s Mild made up three
quarters of the beer drunk in Britain. Nowadays it’s most popular in the West
Midlands and North West.
Burton-on-Trent can trace its brewing
heritage back to 1004 and has always been synonymous with Indian Pale Ale.
Some 23%[6]
of drinkers in the North visit the pub once a week, versus 17% in Scotland, 18%
in the South and 21% in the Midlands.
Men vs.
Women
Women today feel less
social stigma when drinking beer and are much more likely to now experiment
with different brands than their male counterparts.
While the frequency of men
drinking beer three times a week is relatively stable at 16% the number of
women drinking it three times a week is slowly rising, from 2.4% in 2009 to
2.7%[7]
today.
To join in Let There Be Beer, see the
advert and contribute to the world's biggest encyclopaedia of beer please visit
www.facebook.com/lettherebebeer
and follow www.twitter.com/lettherebebeer
