This has to be up there with the "open source beer" clap trap... or maybe the "women better tasters" silliness. It seems the more people need to make a buck the greater the need to foist a 90% rubbishy idea on people. And this one is pure fool's gold:
CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, and the Beer Academy, have today come together to highlight to UK consumers that beer, when drunk in moderation, can help you lose weight, cut alcohol consumption, and more generally, help supplement a healthy lifestyle. New research released during CAMRA's Great British Beer Festival at Earls Court, London (August 3-7) where over 500 British real ales are currently being showcased, shows that 34% of men and 29% of women incorrectly believe that beer contains more calories than other alcoholic drinks.
There is a huge concern with the effect of beer on health. The most read post on this blog is about the calories in big bomb beers. Drinking a bomber of high alcohol beer is like chugging a mug of cake icing. Yet CAMRA knows better. It takes the lowest level of alcohol content it could suggest with a straight face (3.8%) and places it in the half pint serving so loved by Enid Sharples. Who else in their right mind stops at one half pint of a 3.8% beer? No one.
Let's be clear. This is up there with a Bud Lite Lime Draft commercial as far as truth in advertising goes. One just has to consider the heft of those lined up at the opening of the Great British Beer Festival this morning. Curved yet not swerved. If I were to give up beer and, you know, do something with my life I would likely drop 10% of my body weight without a thought. And that would stay off diabetes, relieve stress on the joints and do any number of other good things. Same for many a beer writer and many a beer nerd. As a great mind once sang, my hips don't lie. Those thin people you see drinking a lot of beer? They do insane things like smoke or jog extra to make up for it.
Beer is many good things but it is not all good things. Making up hooey-kablooey dingbattery like this serves no one that matters. Not the drinkers, some of whom may take the wooden nickel and put off the visit to the weight scale for another month. Or the brewers who have to fight off the stigma of being associated with transparency. Or the health professionals trying to prove that a moderate amount of drink is not a sign of the Devil. Like all such foolishness, it will make for a few passing columns in trade papers (and a few thin pay packets for the columnists) but that's about it.