Give me strength

Carlsberg Special Brew is the beer of Churchill, Kingsley Amis – and me. They can’t ban it

I have a confession to make: I am writing this article under the influence. As I tap away at my laptop, a can of lovely Carlsberg Special Brew sits on the table beside me, acting on my brain as oil acts on a car engine: lubricating the moving parts. Ever since I found that it could help to speed up my word output, strong Danish beer has been essential to my writing career, so it’s a great shock to discover that the government has Special Brew in its sights.

Carlsberg Special is perhaps the most notorious of the super-strength lagers on sale in Britain today. It has a glorious alcohol by volume measurement of 9 per cent, and its intensity far exceeds the average lagers on the market, which rarely go above 5 per cent. This why it’s so appealing to tipplers on a tight string; and why it’s known as ‘tramp juice.’

Precisely because of the wayward nature of some of Special Brew’s most ardent clientele, the public health lobby has made the beer a prime target for its sanctimonious activities. The coalition already plans to introduce minimum alcohol pricing to curb sales, but some killjoys now want to go further. One charity, Thames Reach, has called for an outright ban on the sales of all beers above 6 per cent — a form of prohibition voluntarily enacted by many shops across Westminster for some time now. ‘Super-strength alcohol is aimed at alcoholics, drug users and some of the most vulnerable and needy members of society,’ said Audrey Lewis, a Westminster city councillor, in justifying the initiative.

Well, not all Special Brew devotees are gentlemen of the road.