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The leaders of a traditional pub campaign group are set to discuss a call for it to support the “urgent introduction” of minimum alcohol pricing in England later this month.

The move comes in response to a motion passed at the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) annual conference in Dundee earlier this month, which saw the arrival of a new chairman Nik Antona.

Alcohol has retailed for more than 50p ($0.66) per 10ml UK unit in Scotland since May last year. Supporters hope it will curtail the drinking of very heavy drinkers who gravitate towards cheap sources of alcohol. In England the price per unit starts at 16p.

The price of beer sold in pubs is unaffected by minimum pricing, typically being more than three times the 50p minimum price. Supporters within CAMRA argue minimum pricing may help counter the decline of British pubs by narrowing the price gap with supermarkets.

Others do not see it this way, saying on social media the pro-minimum price motion panders to “anti-alcohol” forces, threatening to cancel their CAMRA memberships. Some, however, wonder if an appreciation of untainted liberal economics is a necessary part of appreciating traditional beer.

The tension is not new. CAMRA’s former chairman Colin Valentine, who stood down last year, is said to have spoken in support of the minimum price motion. Yet, under Valentine’s chairmanship, CAMRA also echoed alcohol industry opposition to it.

Help may be at hand. An initial evaluation of the short-term economic impact of minimum pricing in Scotland is due later this year. And some insight into its effectiveness in achieving its goal of reducing harmful drinking is expected next year. ■

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Note: The simplicity of the system is attractive, as is the idea of taxing the potentially harmful element of alcoholic drinks alone. It is interesting, however, to imagine how it might look in the real world. Strong white cider, widely condemned for fueling abuse because it is so cheap, is curently taxed at 7.3p a unit. So increasing the tax to 9p a unit might be expected to raise its price by 1.7p for each unit. This would mean a 3 litre bottle of 7.5% cider, which contains 22.5 units, might go up from £3.99 to £4.37. Would this be enough to deter cash-strapped drinkers? It seems unlikely. An admirably fair and rational tax may be ineffective in curbing inherently irrational patterns of consumption. ■

There is a case study on preventing early deaths from alcohol us in the Russian Federation on page 44 and global alcohol use statistics on page 62 (pictured). The accuracy and comparability of alcohol statistics is often open to question.

There are no fewer than eleven new additions to Alcohol Companion‘s Top of the Pops, a light-hearted shortlist of enjoyable alcohol-free drinks.

These come thanks to the enormous range of samples available at London’s first Mindful Drinking Festival on August 13th, the work of the Club Soda movement for mindful drinkers. 

The motherlode of new chart entries includes two wines: Bees Knees white and rose, brewed using bacterial rather than yeast fermentation; and Woodstar made from acia palm berries, botanicals and cocoa.

Beers make a strong showing too, with eight entries: Big Drop’s lactose-enhanced stout, pale ale, lager and spiced ale; Nirvana’s Karma pale ale, Kosmic stout and Tantra pale ale; and FitBeer, a low-calorie Bavarian-style lager.  

And there is one hard-to-categorise-drink: Botonique, a botanically-based soft drink for wine lovers. There were also many superior soft drinks and teas happy to be a drinking experiences all of their own.

Existing chart entries present included Eisberg’s wine, Heineken’s 0.0 lager; Seedlip alcohol-free spirit and St Peter’s craft ale. Doubtless there were other extraordinary liquid taste experiments unwittingly missed. ■

Among 18-34s in 21 countries

• Nearly 30% respondents reported a relationship between spirits and aggression, significantly higher than other types of alcoholic drink
• Dependent drinkers rely on alcohol to obtain the positive emotions they associated with drinking, being five times more likely to feel energised compared with low risk drinkers
• Heavier drinkers also reported negative emotions more frequently with respondents being just over six times more likely to report feelings of aggression

Source: http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/10/e016089

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Note: This topic is crucial to understanding why we drink alcohol which is both fascinating and useful to know about. This study is potentially confusing, however, not helped by some misleading media coverage. The study refers to “different types of alcohol” which could be misunderstood, because there is only one type of drinkable alcohol, ethanol (C₂H₆O). Alcoholic drinks rarely contain other psychoactives of comparable strength, although the hops in beer are a mild sedative and the caffeine in Coke a mild stimulant. Alcohol dosage is likely to underlie some of the associations. Stronger drinks make it easier to drink more alcohol when we might, for instance, be more likely to be aggressive. But we should not ignore the other powerful ingredient in our drinks: imagination. Alcohol is not needed for it to work. We will, for instance, show signs of inebriation when given a placebo drink containing no alcohol. This effect can be both helpful and unhelpful to us. We can experience both positive and negative emotional effects from our imaginative leap, like feeling happy or feeling sad. And the thing we use to trigger our imaginations and moods can be completely harmless, like a sugar pill, our surroundings or a painting, or potentially counterproductive, like alcohol. ■