#SaturdayKitchen #Beer – A Beer Geek’s / Marketer’s Eye View

Last week, Hardknott Dave complained to Ofcom about the lack of beer coverage on the BBC’s Saturday Kitchen programme. A suggestion was made in the comments on that thread that beer fans take to Twitter on Saturday morning to make their voices heard. Dave later suggested folks should do this via the #saturdaykitchen and #beer hash-tags. I said I’d join in and by heck, I did. On Saturday I chucked a few flakes into the seeming avalanche of tweets, suggesting a few alternate food-and-beer pairings to go with the dishes featured on the show rather than the food-and-wine pairings that the show only ever have.

Participating as a beer geek, I was delighted that so many people had joined in and tweeted a whole range of excellent suggestions (some of which I definitely plan on trying) But I also watched with a marketer’s eye (by profession I’m an online marketing manager for a large London publishing house) for the way the morning’s events were unfolding.

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In an act of joined-up thinking and cooperation apparently rare among beer-related interest groups, CAMRA and the British Beer and Pub Association have joined forces to launch the Axe the Beer Tax, Save the Pub! campaign, with an online presence at www.axethebeertax.com.

By signing up to the mailing list, you can send an automatically generated email to your local MP asking that they join the campaign and protest the estimated 40% hike in beer duty this year (including the recently-announced rise intended to “off-set” the 2.5% drop in VAT that’s supposed to rescue the ailing UK economy) that beer writers like Pete Brown have been vociferously challenging.

Head along to the site, sign up, show your support. Axe the Beer Tax!