Pick on the Little Guy

In recent news, the Brew Dog brewing company has come under fire once again. People with memories may recall they had previous trouble over the branding of their beer, namely that they claimed it tasted nice and was enjoyable to drink. Both claims are true I might add, but it was considered irresponsible and to encourage binge drinking, fortunately they won the appeal. Now they are being called irresponsible for marketing a stout called Tokyo Star, which at 14% is the strongest beer brewed in Scotland.

This ticks me off, because once again people go after the smaller brewers. The Orkney brewery’s “Skull Splitter” beer received flack over its strength and its aggressive Viking themed packaging, however both Skull Splitter and Tokyo Star are craft ales, now while ale drinkers aren’t angels, we do tend to be more interested in flavour than just getting blottoed. Hell, a 350ml bottle of Tokyo Star will set you back £6, that’s pretty pricy for a binge session, and it’s a Stout, try binging on stout, I dare you, you’ll be too full to even contemplate antisocial behaviour.

Why does this tick me off, well, quite frankly, because people always seem to be going for the small firms producing craft ales, rather than the bigger contributors to alcoholism and binge drinking, cheap lager and cheaper ciders like White lightning. In fact its odd, but no one has a go at Carlsberg, for saying their beer is drunk by cool popular guys, and all the major supermarkets still get away selling packs of cheap chemical lager at knockdown prices (often down below 50p a can) so, when £6 can get you 12 500ml cans of tennents or Stella, or 1 350ml bottle of Tokyo Star, what do you think your binge drinking lout will go for?

I honestly think regulating bodies and the press now stay away from the big guys, pull up a big brewer like Carlsberg or Stella on their marketing and you’ll have a swarm of expensive lawyers set upon you, similarly if you push too hard at a major supermarket, so instead, as always the little guys get picked on. It really cheeses me off.