Beer and Faith; and the Future of Pubs

Beer and Faith

This is a really nice Heart and Soul series from BBC World Service with Geoff Bird on this episode introducing The Church and Beer

We need to have a grown up national conversation about beer and pubs.

There's a LOT of misinformation and misunderstanding about beer being a root cause of alcoholism. And this misunderstanding spills over into the realms of The Pub. In the years I've been working on the antidote to the Pubs Crisis I've come across a significant number of instances where people, and the institutions they represent, regard alcohol of any description as a total no go area and pubs, because of their relationship with alcohol, are total No Go Areas too because they're considered to be places set up for the purpose of encouraging and fostering inebriation and anti social behaviour leading to all manner of criminal activity, especially domestic violence, creating significant burden of the state and the NHS paying for the costs of epidemic scale alcohol abuse.

THIS view of alcohol and its social impact - and pubs - is not at all accurate and needs to be examined properly because it holds up evolution in the pub sector and prevents pubs from being properly considered when it comes to valuing The Pub as Britain's unique secular social construct and for their authentic, genuine, true worth as community assets that are able to contribute significan benefit to society when understood properly as being vital to the mental health and social wellbeing of communities all over the UK.

While the broad sweep simplistic views of alcohol abuse and its causes above are common and widespread The FACT is that well run pubs are NOT epicentres of anti social behaviour. They are in fact the opposite: Well run pubs are responsibly supervised spaces where people suffering alcohol dependency are more likely to find direct one to one support and referral for help than they would be if drinking alone or with other dependent friends in isolation at home.

Basically Pubs are All About People - beer and other products are ancillary to their primary purpose which is to meet and share news of current affairs out and about... and beer particularly lends itself well to nurturing comfortable social interaction - but there should never be any obligation for anyone to drink alcohol based drinks if they prefer a nice dandelion and burdock, coffee, tea or water to lubricate a conversation. But that can be discussed in a different conversation.

THIS conversation's about brewing beer in convents, monasteries and faith based places and touches on the good things that embrace the process. Historically of course good beer is all about good people... and good people are the foundations of a good society