Widescreen TV, Cask ales and stomach pumps Two Glasgow pubs are having to scrap their advertising campaign in which they claim to be responsible for, among other things, 89 people having their stomachs pumped, and 11 divorces. The poster adverts on the Underground are being removed after complaints that they are both tasteless and irresponsible.

17 year old boy drinks alcohol - News at Eleven So Prince Harry has been seen drinking - well who'd have thought it? One one hand we have the media screaming on about how the Royals are "remote" and "disconnected from the public they serve", and then we find front page headlines which express shock that a 17 year-old lad goes off to a party and DRINKS ALCOHOL! Of course these same hacks never touch a drop themselves...

My Beergut saved my life OK, it's a story from the Sun, but I'm not proud! 37 year old Sean Reaney from Birmingham was attacked with a petrol-driven circular saw when he took on a group of men he suspected of fly tipping. However, because Mr Reaney weighs in at 22 stone, despite receiving an 18 inch cut across his stomach the saw didn't come close to any of his vital organs. He is now recovering in hospital.

Interbrew - the lurker in the dark? An interesting piece here from The Independent's city editor Nigel Cope about Interbrew's undercover plans for world domination and how they fell foul of the regulators in the UK

Only in America Not wanting to rush into things, the town of Tallmadge in Ohio, a suburb of Akron, finally got around to repealling Prohibition last Monday. Despite the fact that the rest of the United States did so nearly 80 years ago (on December 5th 1933 when the 21st Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, therebye ending the "Noble Experiment"), the town fathers of Tallmadge still refused to allow local sales of alcohol, fearing that too many taverns would be built. The change, approved by voters last year, was finally prompted by a desire to attract chain restaurants that depend on sales of alcohol to boost profits.

Llangollen hotel scuppers Euro experiment A week-long experiment in North Wales to accept Euros during their annual Eisteddfod festival has met with mixed reaction in Llangollen. Around 80,000 people, many from overseas, are expected at the festival and they decided to accept the new European currency during the week long as a gesture to continental visitors and their new money. Raections, however, have been mixed with one of the detractors being The Royal Hotel who firmly rejected an offer of euros for a pint of beer. "We didn't think it was worth changing our tills just for one week," said the staff.

Beer is good for you (still) New research by Dr Manfred Walz from Austria's Graz University shows that not only can drinking beer can halve the risk of having a stroke, but that moderate beer drinkers live longer and are less likely to suffer some serious illnesses.In addition, beer drinkers generally have better blood circulation and are not as prone to developing cancer.He said: "It's widely known that by drinking moderate amounts of red wine the risk of suffering from a stroke is reduced by 5%, but it is reduced by 50% by drinking small quantities of beer each day."

World Cup advertising wins customer free beer for life Football fan Pete Guest had the deal with his local landlord for getting his flag with the Pub's name on it - the Bull Inn at Hardway near Brewham in South Somerset - on the TV during the World Cup. His banner was picked up by TV cameras as Michael Owen scored in England's 3-0 win against Denmark.

Greene King profits up after a busy year After a year which saw Suffolk-based brewer and pubCo Green King firmly on the acquisitions trail (Bibendum reported last week that Oxford-based brewers Morrells were now part of the Green King empire), the company has posted pre-tax profits up 10% to 69.2 million pounds.

Free beer on the NHS In a study being carried out by the Institute of Food Research in Norwich, men are being asked to drink a litre of beer per day to examine the possible link between a vitamin called folate - found in beer - and a reduced risk of heart disease. Unfortunately the beer in question is non-alcoholic, but project leader Dr Paul Finglas defended this decision and suggested that alcoholic beer was unlikely to ever be the ideal way of delivering folate to the body. "It would be difficult to do a study where we are giving people alcoholic beer because people have to get on with their lives. Also alcohol impairs folate absorption in the body." he said.

The Bear Necessities? It's "silly season" in the mainstream press at the moment, and Bibendum is no exception. Apparently villagers in Dobratic in Bosnia have had a young bear living in the meadow close to the village since hunters killed his mother. The villagers have fed him and according to locals he is so tame that you can sit down and enjoy a beer with him without fear that he will turn aggressive. However, the bear, named Mrki, has been tricked into going on the wagon when people grew tired of his drunken 'singing' after finding half-drunk cans left over by the locals.

According to village coffee shop owner Tadija Sugic "It got to the stage of him drinking up to 20 cans of beer a day and getting drunk. We tried to give him soft drinks like cola and orange, but he just didn't like them so we decided to trick him with non-alcoholic beer - and it's worked a treat. He loves it."

Bibendum is sure that the manufacturers of Kaliber will be delighted that someone enjoys their products, but feel that Congleton's famous brewery has missed a marketing trick on this one.

Lager flavoured crisps A couple of months ago Bibendum reported that a group of food scientists at Purdue University in Indiana had figured out a way of stripping the moisture out of beer to create a "beer spice" which could be used to flavour foods. Yesterday McCoys announced the release next month of a new range known as "Lager" which, unsurprisingly, allegedly taste of lager. The company said the new flavour was made with brewing yeast and hops used in the production of lager and also claims it is considering a milder flavour for women, (a half-pint taste "for the ladies"???) and a real ale variety for traditional drinkers.

Sounds to us like a great way of ruining two perfectly good foodstuffs.

British drinkers still switching from beer to wine Research from market analysts Mintel yesterday, showed that despite falling wine sales in France, British drinkers are steadily pushing up their consumption of wine. We have gone from averaging 7.7 litres each in 1981 to 22 litres each in 2001, with sales rising over 4% last year alone. A Mintel spokesman said: "Wine has been the success story of the alcoholic drinks sector in the UK. From a beer-drinking nation, wine has grown to become an everyday drink for much of the population. Indeed, almost two-thirds of the population drink wine and over a third of these are heavy users." The UK now tops the European drinking league, with 89 per cent enjoying alcohol at home or in the pub, compared with 88 per cent of French, 76 per cent of Spaniards and 66 per cent of Germans.

ScottCo to sell off pubs? S & N's Chief Executive - Brian Stewart - is to announce tomorrow the results of a review of the company's pub estate. Many analysts are predicting that disposing of some or all of the c. 1500 pubs will be the outcome in an attempt to finance the acquisition of Kronenbourg which it bought from French food group Danone in 2000. The details have yet to be worked out, but it is believed that the estate could be worth up to £1.5 billion.

Update Well sort-of. It looks as though they intend to sell off the pubs, but continue to run them as part of their managed estate. The Independent is carrying the story here.

Russians develop Space Beer Apparently the Russian Academy of Agricultural Science is working on developing a non-alcoholic beer full of tasty additional vitamins and minerals for cosmonauts working in the International Space Station. BBC news is carrying the full story here.

Great British Beer Festival tickets for sale online We are now in the run-up to CAMRA's annual Great British Beer Festival, which this year is open to the public at London's Olympia from 6th to 10th of August 2002. Tickets for all sessions are available to members and non-members either from the CAMRA website here, or by telephoning CAMRA during office hours on +44 (0) 1727 867201

Scientists discover genetic aversion to alcohol Ongoing work on genetic profiling in the wake of the Human Genome Project has identified a gene - labelled ADH2*2 - which causes people who carry it to find drinking alcohol an unpleasant experience. This gene, which prevents alcohol being detoxified by the liver was originally carried from mainland China to Taiwan about 5,000 years ago and is now much more common in the Far East and Australasia than in Europe. Blood sample testing by Victoria University in Australia shows that more than two-thirds of Polynesians have the gene while fewer than one in 10 people of European descent have it.

USA to get Carling and Worthingtons - our revenge for Bud? After buying the Carling brand from InterBrew last December, Denver-based Coors are now planning on offering Carling to American drinkers as one of their "speciality brands". According to Leo Kiely (Coors president and CEO) plans to export Carling were at an early stage, but preparations to export Worthington's were more developed. 'The provenance of Worthington's is an authentic British ale".

I wonder if he wants to buy a bridge ?

MPs "drowning their failure in beer" A number of news sources are carrying this story about disillusioned MPs straying to the bar rather than taking part in debates. Seemingly initiated by the story (as carried here at Bibendum last week) that the beer consuption at Westminster has doubled, veteran Conservative MP Sir Teddy Taylor claims that this is because realisation that they are useless drives young MPs to drink.
"The tragedy is that young people get elected to the Commons believing that they can play a part in putting things right," he said. "When they find they can't - because so many of the decisions are taken outside Westminster now - they resort to the drinking dens."

Green King takes over Morrells Green King has added further to it's country pub portfolio after it's previous acquisition of Morlands. By adding Oxford-based Morrells to the list, GK now gain a further 57 managed and 50 tenanted pubs within a 30-mile radius of Oxford.

Football fever leads to mass sales of beer, pizza...and condoms? In preparation for the Big Match on Friday, supermarket chains are reporting massive increases in sales of beer and snack food. Apparently Sainsbury's are shipping a thousand pints of beer a minute, whilst M&S and ASDA are selling pizza as fast as they can get it on the shelves. Interestingly ASDA are also reporting a doubling in condom sales.

Churchill was worried about beer for the troops Reuters are reporting that some wartime records, just opened by the Public Records Office, show that even at the height of the war Churchill was concerned about a myriad of matters including litter, grammar and the availability of beer to the British soldiers. "A serious appeal was made to me by General Alexander for more beer for the troops in Italy. The Americans are said to have four bottles a week, and the British rarely get one" he complained.

Beer consumption doubles in the Houses of Parliament According to Tyne & Wear's Federation Brewery, who supply beer to the Houses of Parliament, MPs and visitors are now drinking 2,500 pints a month. In the last 6 months the beer order has doubled although this may be due to more visitors rather than MPs being permanently addled.

Famous Drinkers - Dylan Thomas Chloe Diski's series on "great drinkers of our time" moves on to Dylan Thomas this month. According to Diski, Thomas used beer as a way of washing away his middle-class background and allowed him to "taste the gutter". In Thomas' own words "I liked the taste of beer, its live, white lather, its bright-brass depths." Dylan Thomas died in 1953 aged 39.