The social drinker

The people with real power in our society are often middlemen. They are the characters in the background who decide which candidates political parties will field at election time or what clothes will be stocked in the high-street chains.

It is the same with beer, wine and spirits. A small number of influential buyers in the supermarkets, and a few distributors that supply our off-licences and pubs, broadly decide what we drink in this country.

In recent weeks, there has been upheaval in this world as Dundalk-born billionaire Pearse Lyons has taken a lead position when it comes to the distribution of many of the more obscure beers in this country. Lyons is a fascinating character who made his money from animal-health products in the US, after a promising job here, working for Harp. That experience appears to have left him with a life-long interest in beer, and his company, Alltech, is well known here for helping craft brewers by sponsoring prizes, festivals and the like.

It is far too early to say whether the deepening involvement of Pearse Lyons in the drinks business is positive, but it has led to the reappearance of Flensburger Pils in my local after a long absence.

This refreshing beer, which is close to a cult beer in Germany and brewed in large quantities in the beautiful Baltic port of Flensburg, has been strangely absent from the shelves of most independent retailers for some time now.

For me, Flensburger is a sort of talisman, and I look for it whenever I’m browsing in a specialist offlicence. A bottle of Flensburger is a sign the off-licence takes its job seriously and is prepared to go to some lengths to find good beer. The converse is not true; supply has been so erratic lately that one cannot dismiss a place because it fails to stock Flensburger, although hopefully that is about to change.