No, this wont work either

Apparently from Saturday the price of some beers will be up to 50p cheaper if they have only 2.8% abv (alcohol by volume) and apart from wondering what's the point of drinking something that will be flushed out of your system by numerous trips to the loo before you can get any sort of effect I do think that the wishful thinking going on in the paper that this will invigorate the pub trade rather misses the elephant in the room.
Mail.

Cash strapped drinkers and people looking for a low alcohol beer will have more choice from this weekend as new ranges of tax-busting beers are introduced.
From Saturday, a new rule will mean that beers with less than 2.8 per cent alcohol by volume will be taxed less, leading to possible savings of 50p for some drinks.
With local pubs closing at an alarming rate and government promoting responsible drinking, beer lobby groups have welcomed the new tax break.
Dubbed the 'people's pints', many brewers have already started selling lager and ale with lower alcohol contents but more are likely to follow suit.
Carlsberg UK has already announced that it will reduce the strength of it's Skol lager from 3 per cent to 2.8 per cent to take advantage of the new tax break.
The Campaign for Real Ale says it hopes the lower price and alcohol content will provide a lifeline for thousands of pubs threatened with closure.

God alone knows why Camra thinks this will help, the stuff mentioned is hardly real ale after all and Carlsberg Skol barely escapes classification as drain cleaner in my book of beers to avoid at all costs.
The elephant in the room of course is the smoking ban whereby the state took it upon itself to tell people what they could and couldn't do with a legal pastime on their own property, rather than leave it down to personal choice. That decision is the one which sounded the death knell for so many pubs, not expensive beer, but the fact that many of their customers (and non smoking friends) decided they no longer felt welcome in the pubs and decided to just meet and drink at home instead.
Try getting a politician to admit this though and it's like trying to get blood out of a stone, a very few have, but by and large they seem to live on a different planet to the rest of us and cannot see the cause and effect factor at work.
If they'd just left us alone and not tried to legislate away our freedoms, then perhaps the pub trade (and the country) wouldn't be in the mess that it is.