The Daily Mail reports that supermarket chains Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda are selling their own brands of beer at 22p (US$0.46) a can, which is less per litre than it costs to buy the stores’ mineral water and cola, and, in what would seem to be pure hyperbole given the alcohol content of the beer is between 2 and 3 percent, “cheap enough to allow someone to get drunk for just £1” (more on how they sent a reporter out in order to prove that claim later).

Competition between the three supermarket chains led to the low price, with the stores taking on up to an 8p per can loss just to keep up with one another. All three chains now offer the cheapest beer on their rosters for 50p a litre, while mineral water costs between 56p and 92p a litre depending on the store. (The latter price is of course the real scandal, but we’ll leave the great bottled-water debate [your wallet and good ole' mother earth are better off with the tap] to blogs such as this one).

Many readers, especially those from Ontario, Canada where a government monopoly necessitates a drive out to the hinterlands for beer restocking, will see all silver-lining and no cloud when it comes to having such easily accessible and cheap booze at the ready. The Mail, however, did not write this one as a feel-good piece, but rather took the occasion to sound several alarm bells.

The main concern was that the youth would put down their alcopops and rush for the cheap lager, which, we presume, is typically the purview of your older recreational drunk. One public health advocate whose comments were included by the Mail in an attempt to strengthen this point came out with an interesting bit of armchair teenage psychology when he ventured that teens would “think that if it’s so cheap, it must be OK”. The reported low to which Finland has sunk (who knew!) following a 40% cut in its alcohol taxes was also thrown in for extra points.

The Mail even went to the trouble of sending out one of its reporters to drink the cheap beer and report back on its effects in an accompanying piece entitled”How I - a twenty-something woman - got drunk on £1 worth of the 22p lager” (that story here). The reporter, a 27-year-old woman who stands 5 feet tall (and is not as wide as she is tall), might have seemed an odd choice for this test, but here were some selected observations from her afternoon on Asda’s own-brand three percent lager (on which she spent £1 hence the headline):

“The first taste is disgusting - a mouthful of gassy, foul-tasting liquid. I don’t drink lager often, but even I can tell this is scraping the barrel. The first can is hard to drink but I don’t notice too much of a change in myself.”

Later, she’s loosened up a bit but appears somewhat self-conscious…

“Two cans down and I realise that I am wittering, getting more talkative and, I fear, slightly boring.”

Ah, the glorious third can, now things are rocking:

“Into the third can I start feeling more affectionate and my inhibitions are lowered - swinging my legs over my chair, I find myself telling the photographer what a fabulous chap he is and how much I love working with him.”

However, those who would be thanking their lucky stars for this, the cheapest of cheap dates, might be put off by the likes of the following:

“The gassiness is getting to me and I keep emitting rather unladylike burps.”

And it all goes to pot on the last can and a half:

“On my fourth can, I am getting a bit aggressive - pointing at the photographer as I make another “fascinating” comment and swearing more than I ever would in polite company. By the last half, I have definitely had enough. My voice is heavy and slurred, my limbs feel floppy, my eyes have gone droopy and I have lost the ability to concentrate on anything for longer than a couple of minutes. Worryingly, the lager tastes OK, even nice, and I feel as though I could carry on drinking it if asked.”

And, with that, comes a moral to the story of the type that is slightly subtler than a jackhammer in the ear:

“I am a 27-year-old woman and, although only 5ft, am used to drinking alcohol and can deal with the changes it causes. But take each of the physical and emotional side-effects that I felt - and imagine the effect they would have on a teenager.”

The Shark Guys