Tracks Of My Tiers

The Tier 3 restrictions that have been imposed upon Merseyside and Lancashire mean that drink-based pubs have now been closed for a second time this year, while food pubs can sell you drinks but only when you are having a meal. Some pubs are now offering takeaway and delivery services. Local CAMRA members have been telling me which pubs and breweries in our area that are doing this.

• The Grasshopper, 70 Sandon Road, Southport. Delivery every day of real ales, ciders and wine. Order via Facebook. Tel: 01704 569794.

• The Tap & Bottles, 19A Cambridge Walks, Southport, are doing beer deliveries. Order via Facebook. Tel: 01704 544322.

• The Beer Den 65/67 Duke Street, Southport. Takeaways on Thursday to Saturday, plus deliveries. See their Facebook page. Tel: 01704 329007.

• The Parker Brewery, Unit 3, Gravel Lane, Banks, Southport say “anyone interested in takeaways or deliveries, get in touch”. Tel: 01704 620718.

• The Rock the Boat Brewery, 6 Little Crosby Village. L23 4TS are doing takeaways. Tel: 07727 959356.

• The Dog & Gun, 233 Long Lane Aughton, L39 5BU. Takeaway real ale, cider and food. Tel: 01695 421999

• The Beer Station, 3 Victoria Buildings, Victoria Road, Formby, have said they intend to instal two extra fridges for bottled beer takeaway. Tel: 01704 807450.

• The Cricketers, 24 Chapel Street, Ormskirk, is doing a food and drink takeaway service. Tel: 01695 571123

• Cheshire Lines, King Street, Southport, say, “Sunday delivery service so get your roast & cask orders in by messaging us, calling 07787 406 504 or phoning 01704 807710 on Sunday”.

I've tried to ensure these details are correct. If any other local pubs and breweries are doing deliveries or takeaways, tell the local branch of CAMRA via the contact details on the CAMRA Southport & West Lancs website for inclusion in a future column in the local papers.

► You can order on-line from other beer businesses using CAMRA's Brew2You website which aims to support pubs and breweries through these difficult times. This site connects you with local businesses selling great beer, and perhaps other drinks too. Your money will be paid in full to the businesses concerned, with only 5% admin fee to cover costs, thereby making this service completely free to the businesses using it.

► This is adapted from an article that I wrote for the CAMRA column in our local papers, the Southport Visiter and Ormskirk Advertiser. Older articles on local pubs are here.

51% of beer now sold in shops

For the first time ever, more beer (51%) is sold in shops than in pubs. The British Beer and Pub Association puts most of the blame on the beer duty escalator, pointing out that, despite recent cuts, duty is 54% higher than it was in 2000, and is 14 times the German rate. In 1980, 87.7% of UK beer sales were in pubs, a figure that has declined ever since.

While I don't disagree with this point, there is another reason that I haven't seen mentioned: in 1980, supermarkets didn't sell alcohol alongside the baked beans. I well recall the massive fuss when a supermarket in Southport applied for an off-sales licence; I cannot remember the year, but it was well after 1980. The licence was granted but with restrictions that seem odd today, including that it had to be in an entirely separate room with its own till, and that alcohol could not be paid for at any other till in the shop. I'm not quite sure, but I think that there might even have been a stipulation that any alcohol bought in the off licence section could not be carried unwrapped in the rest of the supermarket. As we all know, drink is now stocked in the normal aisles and paid for like everything else.

The difference between having a separate shop within a shop and the current situation is that it allows for impulse purchases; it also removes the implication that alcohol sales are something slightly shameful to be hidden away. Buying alcohol with your everyday groceries has now become completely normal. In recent years the number of convenience stores with an off-sales licence, many run by the big supermarket chains, has multiplied, resulting in a further increase in the number shops that sell alcohol. Ironically, quite a few of these are in former pubs.

All of this has encouraged a huge expansion in off-sales, a tendency that the duty escalator added to, but did not create. Cutting duty would certainly help pubs, but it couldn't significantly reverse the tendency to drink at home: the decline in pub use is due to many factors, of which duty is one, that have been covered extensively elsewhere*.

It's also worth noting that making alcohol so much easier to buy has one entirely foreseeable consequence which - oddly enough - no one seemed to foresee: that it would also make under-age purchases easier. In this way do we unwittingly create new causes for moral panic.

* My own list of suggestions for the decline is here.