World’s Strongest Beer – A Cheap Publicity Stunt?

Brewmeister – a small Scottish craft brewery is the love child of two intrepid brewers, Lewis and John, who were bored of watery tasting lagers and boring beers

Their idea to open a brewery, which fused Scottish malts with German yeast, came about on the beautiful west coast of Scotland on a camping trip. Three months later, the guys had signed the lease on an old farm building and bought old dairy tanks to begin brewing. Nearly two years on, they have moved to a custom built brewery in Speyside, they now employ nearly 20 people and export around the world. Their passion is creating beers with a difference, which excites the taste buds and energises the soul; they wish Peace and love to all!

I think you’d have got a lot of peace and love from one of their recent brews - ‘Snake & Venom’ - which claimed an ABV of 67.5%, and which fell foul of the Advertising Standards Agency!! The ASA criticised their 67.5% claim because there was no clarity as to how the 67.5% was achieved – they suspected Ethyl Alcohol may have been added! The ASA have also suggested that future products from Brewmeister shouldn’t place an over-emphasis on the strength of the product! Wonder why?

Of course many have criticised Brewmeister for creating “The world’s strongest beer” simply as a cheap publicity stunt. But a recent counter-comment from Lewis Shand would seem to add credence to these claims – “We’re hoping to win people back with taste, not mad PR stunts like we have done before”.

A quick search of their online shop reveals that this particular brew is currently no longer available to buy, so it would appear that Brewmeister may have seen the error of their ways. Which is a bit of a shame, as I would have liked to have tried just a tooth-full!

At a time when most of the rest of the industry is reducing alcohol strengths to help combat the adverse effect of alcohol (and keep government off their backs) thank the Lord for companies like these who show that we really do live in a great nation where diversity and individuality reigns … if only temporarily!


Martin Read CMBII
Managing Director of Inn-Dispensable Personal Licence Courses

Windsor Nightclub Takes Alcohol Retailing to a New Low

Some bright spark (without authority, apparently) thought it a great idea to tweet the message below with picture to ‘market and sell’ the delights of spending a night in this club, which is a stones throw for HM’s Berkshire residency (not sure if she is a regular client, possibly not. Andrew might be though).

“Want to end up like her? We're giving away a free booth to groups of girls this Friday. Direct message us”. The image shows a seemingly comatose woman wearing just thong underwear and sprawled out on her front surrounded by drink bottles.

So all of the tremendous work the industry has done to promote ‘responsibly retailing of alcohol’ seems to be lost on these individuals - both the person who tweeted and the lady (hic) in the photo.

The management of the premises have apologised unreservedly and no doubt the culprit is getting an enormous boll*cking! Not sure if the lady has been swooped up by some lucky groom!

Talk about giving the anti-alcohol brigade ammunition!


Martin Read CMBII
Managing Director of Inn-Dispensable Personal Licence Courses

UK Alcohol Consumption Down But Publicans Are Far From Out

The Portman Group, an organisation established in 1989 by the UK's leading alcohol producers, with a role to promote responsible drinking; to help prevent alcohol misuse; has reported strong evidence to show that ‘we’ (the great British public that is) are changing our relationship with alcohol!

The politicians of course, ever seeking to boast of their wisdom, try to take all of the praise for achieving this; with alcohol consumption falling, underage drinking falling, breath-test positives falling and alcohol related accident numbers and violence also declining.

However, the real praise should go to those great British Publicans who through greater professionalism, training and education ensure that alcohol is sold responsibly in the 50,000 + pubs in the UK.

The dramatic growth in food sales in pubs has changed the whole atmosphere in so many pubs; legislation has also forced pubs to comply with more and more red tape and stringent penalties for any irresponsible alcohol retailing activity. I just hope that drinking at home (where consumption is totally unsupervised) is not taking too much out of our treasured world famous ‘British Pub’ heritage! ‘Pre-loading’ at home often sees intoxicated customers arriving at the pub having not bought a single half of bitter there! Leaving the publican to deal with the consequences.

The reported trends are of course good news, whilst I have no doubt that other reports to counter this published evidence are on their way and will show we are all on our way to Armageddon through ‘the evils of drink’.

The anti-alcohol brigade is alive and well and will latch onto any shred of a statistic proving alcohol to be at the root cause of all societies problems!

Watch this space!


Martin Read CMBII
Managing Director of Inn-Dispensable Personal Licence Courses

Drugs Awareness Pub Training - Online Mock Exam

Inn-Dispensable are pleased to announce the launch of our FREE online Drugs Awareness mock exam. This is a great interactive tool to test your knowledge prior to attending our one-day Drugs Awareness Course and exam at one of our many fantastic training sites across the UK.

This online test contains 15 multiple-choice questions which are randomly selected and are typical of the exam subject matter and mirrors closely the type of questions which appear within the real Drugs Awareness exam – so you can test yourself again and again to help build your knowledge.

Available on all devices, from desktops to mobiles.

Best of luck!


Martin Read CMBII
Managing Director of Inn-Dispensable Pub Training Courses

Cheap Food & Drink in Pubs on September 24th!

The mighty campaign to see VAT on food and drink reduced in pubs from 20% to 5% drives forward.

Buy a pint and a pie in a pub and pay an extra 20% - compared to purchasing the same in a supermarket. No equality there!

So the argument is simple; reduce VAT in pubs, create more sales, more employment, and therefore more income to the treasury. All of this whilst removing the tax inequality twixt pubs and supermarkets.

September 24th will see thousands of pubs reduce their prices by 7.5% (which has the same impact if VAT was reduced to 5%).

Tim Martin Chairman of JD Wetherspoon said that his 900 pubs will participate and they intend to make September 24th the busiest day of the year. Well done to him, say I!

Many other pub companies and individual operators will also support the day, so get down your pub on the 24th!

Martin Read CMBII
Managing Director of www.inn-dispensable.com Personal Licence Courses