Off-trade attacked in new sketches

Independent brewers are hitting back at cheap off-trade booze - by revising sketches from eighteenth century artist William Hogarth.

Hogarth is famed for depicting heavy drinking in eighteenth century Britain with his Gin Lane sketches.

The Society of Independent Brewers (Siba) has commissioned two up-to-date versions of Hogarth's work.

Gin Lane is renamed Binge Lane, where violence, unconsciousness and underage drinking is depicted alongside shops selling cheap beer and alcopops.

The more amiable Beer Street becomes Pub Street, a peaceful environment of real ale, good food, bar games and live entertainment.

Siba chairman Peter Amor said: "The gin of the 18th century may have been replaced by a whole trolley of cheap drinks, but the message is the same.​

"The pub is practically the only place where you can drink draught beer and people's behaviour there is subject to strict controls by the licensee and by the presence of mature, well behaved regular customers who wouldn't stand for any kind of trouble.

"The real source of the problems that are being sensationally highlighted by the media at the moment is cheap liquor sold in bulk and, in a minority of supermarkets and off-licences, without much regard to the age of the people buying it.

"In the circumstances, it is totally unfair to lump pubs in with the real perpetrators of the problem."

Siba's campaign will include lobbying MPs and peers to make them aware that pubs are not the main culprits of binge drinking.

The campaign will also be aired at Siba's annual conference in York next month.