Paintings target binge drinking

Binge Lane shows youths fighting and drunken schoolgirls

Paintings from 1751 depicting the drunk and disorderly have been recommissioned for a campaign against binge drinking.

William Hogarth's Beer Street and Gin Lane were aimed at contrasting the perceived evil of drinking gin with the supposed merits of beer.

The new campaign aims to encourage people to drink in pubs and not buy cut-price alcohol from supermarkets.

Artist Enoch Sweetman, from Herefordshire, has named his paintings Binge Lane and Pub Street.

The Society of Independent Brewers (Siba), said they were up-to-date versions of the original works.

In Pub Street, people are seen as relaxed and happy

Hogarth's paintings showed happy and healthy people in Beer Street compared with the debauched and lazy in Gin Lane.

Siba chairman, Peter Amor, says he would rather drinkers be responsible in their pubs, than drunk on the street.

"The gin of the 18th century may have been replaced by a whole trolley of cheap drinks, but the message is the same," he said.

"The pub is practically the only place where you can drink draught beer and people's behaviour there is subject to strict controls by the licensee and by the presence of mature, well-behaved regular customers who wouldn't stand for any kind of trouble."

The drawings will be sent to MPs and made available to pubs to publicise the dangers of binge drinking.

Siba represents more than 400 local and regional breweries, many of which own pubs.