by Ewan Turney
The north of Britain enjoyed the biggest increase in beer sales over the festive season, with the south suffering a small decline.
A survey of 500 community pubs by beer dispense monitoring consultants Nucleus Data showed that sales in the north increased by 0.7% from last year while those in the south fell by 0.6%. Overall sales were up by 0.1% during the period 23 December to 1 January. "Not a lot changed year on year," said Nucleus Data operations director Clive Consterdine. "The figures are remarkably consistent over the past four years."
The biggest improvement in sales compared to last year's results occurred on 23 December. "You could see that a lot of people finished work on 23 December, which was a Thursday," said Consterdine.
The slowest period was between 27 December and 30 December as customers gave themselves a break from the pub before commencing the New Year celebrations. The single worst day for trading was 27 December. "You have to look at where the days fell," explained Consterdine. "This year, 27 December was a bank holiday Monday whereas last year it was a Saturday."
The most popular day in the south was Christmas Eve, while New Year's Eve brought the most people out in the north.
Nucleus plotted the pattern of trade hour by hour on New Year's Eve and also found that data to be "incredibly consistent" with previous years, reaching a peak just before midnight and falling away afterwards.
It also noted strong New Year's Eve lunchtime consumption as customers wound down in preparation for the evening's celebrations.