UK: Nottingham Brewery to produce beer to help alcoholics

A Beer is to be launched in Nottingham - and ten pence from each pint will help alcoholics. Ten barrels of the brew will be produced at The Nottingham Brewery, behind The Plough in St Peter's Street, Radford, Nottingham Evening Post posted July 30.

Pub chains JD Wetherspoon and The Pub People Company have agreed to sell the ale in the East Midlands. An estimated GBP3,000 from sales will go to Nottingham's Alcohol Problems Advisory Service, which counsels and supports people with a drink problem.

Nick Tegerdine, chief executive of APAS, said it would help pay the GBP25-an-hour costs of a helpline and provide a weekend creche for the children of people using the service. "We have to get more from where we can to keep our services going," he said.

Mr Tegerdine, who valued the responsible approach to alcohol by a drinks company, said: "It is the first time a brewery has linked up with a service like ours. If that could be replicated across the country it would solve enormous problems because services like this one struggle to keep the wolf from the door." The week ended July 30 Mr Tegerdine was in the Evening Post readers' panel which quizzed Tony Blair on his public health policy.

He asked the prime minister to put a penny tax on the price of a pint, not a penny on income tax as reported on July 26. He said the money could pay for more education about alcohol and the health and social costs associated with its misuse.

Mr Tegerdine said: "A penny on a pint would raise more than enough." Mr Blair sidestepped the suggestion, pointing out the Government was working with the industry to create a Drink Aware Trust, with GBP12m from drinks companies over three years.

In his speech at the Albert Hall in the city, Mr Blair said: "Again this will provide Government with a different vehicle to influence people to make healthy choices." Mr Blair used his Nottingham speech to herald a new partnership between Government, business, and individuals, to encourage us all to live more healthy lives and he sees the drinks industry as part of this.

But Mr Tegerdine wants the PM to go further. He and many public health experts are concerned about the marketing tactics of the drinks industry, which appear to often target young people, and the amount spent on promoting safe drinking is dwarfed by the advertising spend.

While the Drink Aware Trust will spend GBP4m each year on promoting sensible drinking, the most recent figures reveal the industry spent GBP203m on advertising its products during 2004.

Nottingham Brewery Company has produced charity beers before, but director Philip Darby said this one was different. "I do not want our product to be lumped together with the kind of drinks, like alcopops, that are high alcohol and too cheaply priced and get people into a state when they cannot behave themselves," he said.

The ale will have an alcoholic strength of between 3.8% and 4% by volume and it will be called XXS. Mr Darby said he would support a penny tax on beer, and he suggested high alcohol drinks could be taxed more heavily.

Sam Jobber, spokeswoman for the Portman Group, which is funded by the largest drinks firms in the UK to promote responsible drinking, praised the Nottingham initiative. She said: "It is a great idea. The more drinks producers do in the area of local initiatives the better. It is a good idea as long as people are drinking responsibly and not too much."

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