Recently I have been listening to the various arguments about all day pub opening on the today programme and each commentator was saying that a change in culture was what is required to control the 11 o'clock kick out tension and violence in Britain's city centres.
This is true, I feel, a longer slower drinking pace will mean that people will not get drunk as quickly. However I feel that this emphasis solely on the opening hours misses the point a bit. Most of my French, Italian and Spanish friends are amazed at the post work pint phenomenon, office and shop workers drinking 3-4 pints with only crisps as accompaniment. The quality and cost of British pub snacks is often woeful. Too much frozen food into the fryer, everything seems to either be full of fat, like potato wedges or not fresh, like the pub nachos, straight from the packet and onto the plate, then into the microwave. Promoting the place of the kitchen in the British pub seems to be an important aspect of this cultural divide, the majority of places that the the rest of Europe drinks in are cafe-bars, where the place of food and decent coffee is already well established.
Something else that I feel makes us differ is the volume of beer we drink as a standard measure, a pint is quite a lot of beer to drink compared to a 330ml bottle. In France, often the standard measure for bottles or for draft is 250ml or 330ml. The pacing factor is often the time it takes for round buying, if this is pints at a time with no food as opposed to half or third of a litre with food, then it is no wonder the British are seen as drunks.
Moving to the smaller measure would not be as big a shock as it seems, many people already drink bottles of beer in preference to pints, or they drink gin and tonic. The half pint is seen in a poor light, so getting the publicans to serve ales and lagers in 330ml glasses would be of benefit to society. I cannot see the average drinking male in the UK going for it thought, the manliness of pint drinking is too well ingrained. Pity for the ale drinker, then as he or she is comdemned to insobriety or ridicule or lager.
Can we please have sensible sized amounts to drink with food in bars where you can hear yourself think, or is that too much to ask ? I mean we have got beyond wine being a choice of red or white and there are plenty of pubs with decent cask ales, some even have nice food. Still the standard British pub is a place devoted to drinking copious amounts of lager with the music too loud to have a conversation and not quite enough chairs, all designed to encourage you back to the bar, we as the customers need to take back control of the situation.
