When will it be impossible to buy a beer?

 The plight of the UK pub is well known but this short blog post is actually based around my holiday to Malaysia.

I was in the beautiful island of Langkawi in 2004 when the boxing day tsunami hit. Thankfully the island escaped the worst of the tsunami and things were quickly put straight and only 1 person died. 

Back in 2004 it was pretty easy to get a beer in Langkawi. 21 years later I am back on Langkawi and it's not quite so easy to buy a beer. Thank heavens for Google maps - I can quickly search which restaurants, hotels and bars sell alcohol.

The reason why it's harder to get alcohol is the percentage of Muslim population in Malaysia has changed significantly.  Back in 2004 it was 60% Muslim and has now increased to 65% in just  20 years.

There are now dry hotels. We stayed in the beautiful Ombek Villa hotel which was fabulous but we wouldn't have booked it had we known it was dry. It just didn't feel the same without a beer or cocktail by the pool.

However there are consequences for this hotel. It was clear their revenues were impacted by this religious policy. Virtually nobody ate in the restaurant in the evening - jump in a taxi and go to a restaurant 10 minutes down the road. 

They were trying to compensate by having Happy Hour for food. I am not sure the concept works for food - once you are full you are full. Somehow there's always room for more beer.

Commercial survival clearly means compromising on religious beliefs or figuring out how to monetize a Muslim customer base.

So where does that leave the UK?

The UKs Muslim population has also increased in the last 20 years from 2.5% to 6% 

 If that high rate of compound growth continues I guess it will be hard to buy a beer by 2070 or the business proposition will need to change.

Anyway I highly recommend going to Malaysia and Langkawi and enjoying the friendly hospitality.


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