Beer prices at festivals

"suspect"? So you don't know either, your statement is no more or less valid than the one you're replying to.

KeithS

I tend to stick to stronger beers, or cider, because I'm only small and can't handle large quantities of liquid, but I still want the appropriate degree of mind-altering effects, so it has to be a relatively high ABV to get me where I want to be without feeling bloated.

This is probably because pubs have struggled to sell darker beers in the past.

If a regional brewer makes one of their seasonal specials a darker beer it is likely (regardless of the merits of the beer) to halve the sales compared with ones of a more bitter-type colour.

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"The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of civilisation in any country." (Winston Churchill)

I can understand if you simply don't like the taste of mild but milds such as Cannon Royall Mild, Hansons Mild and Holdens Mild are anything but wishy washy.

Sainsbury's never ask me to pay separately in cash for every item which I will buy on a particular visit to their establishment, scurrying off to a plastic box on a nearby shelf to count out the change for each individual item.

And also, I wasn't talking about rounding off a combined total bill as such, it was more about having easy to use prices in the first place. Would you prefer it if the beers were priced at (say) 87p, 93p, 107p,

113p, to represent more closely the "real" costs of selling each one?

If I buy two beers at a quid each, the organisers get the same money as if I buy one at 90p and one at 110p. If everyone gets the 90p beer, it runs out, so people then move to the 110p beer, so the two quid still comes in.

FWIW, I've been to some shops which have rounded the bill to save messing around, and some traders at the local farmers' market do. I suppose it depends whether the seller is dealing with his own (ish) time and money, or that controlled by head office's computer system.

But in the final analysis , visitors didn't let the price/value of the beers affect what they bought AT ALL. Does anyone really imagine that a few pence more or less bothers anyone enough to decide what they buy at a festival? We were told over and over again by the visitors what a good idea it all was. Never a complaint or even an enquiry! And after 10 hours behind the bar and someone asks for five different ales it is quite enough to remember how many to charge for , never mind how much! In a nutshell - if we are happy and the public is happy , what is the problem?

But it's NOT change, though, is it ?

In Sainsbury's you get cash which can then be spent in Tesco's. At Eastbourne Beer Festival (which is where this thread all started), far from being negotiable currency, it's a flimsy scrap of paper with no value anyywhere else than Eastbourne Beer Festival, and furthermore is non-refundable.

I think people can be too anal about the fine details of pricing at beer festivals. But even so you need some differentiation - it can't make sense selling 6.5% beers for the same price as 3.2% ones, and it is likely to encourage some customers simply to go for the strongest.

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"The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of civilisation in any country." (Winston Churchill)

The best pint of beer I ever had was Thwaites Mild in a pub in the pennines above Rochdale. It was a million miles from wishy-washy and unpleasant.

The main reason that milds don't sell well is that the price differential from bitter isn't enough to persuade people to drink the lower gravity beer. That hasn't always been the case though.

Another reason is that the big breweries refuse to promote the stuff as it's "for old people", whereas they prefer to target impressionable youngsters who will buy whatever eurofizz they are told to buy. After all the costs of producing - and maintaining - lagerade are far lower than traditional crafted beers, so they can sell them at hugely inflated prices and rake in the profit.

Brian

They gave "change" in the form of tokens?

I'm not sure about the legality of that, nor about the no refunds aspect. You pay cash for goods or services and the token is neither. It's just a notification that a payment has been made at the money taking area in order to keep money away from other areas.

In the analogy I was referring to Arthur not being interested in the change at beer festivals and pointing out that this would either be the case at the local supermarket or he runs dual standards.

I think that may be either an Appeal to Ignorance or the Burden of Proof fallacy, either way it doesn't disprove my point that perhaps he finds brewery prices illogical because he's not acquainted with all the variables.

None, that I can see. Congratulations on using a very customer friendly scheme. At the recent Huddersfield festival, a token equated to a 95p half. Fine, except that some beers were +/- 5p. Meaning, a lot of messing about. Not popular with punters. I think a festival should be either token or cash but never the two combined.

And why even bother ? Nobody is going to be swayed by the odd 5p either way ( but might stick at the 95p beers for the convenience of not having to bother with the change - is this what the organisers had in mind?)

In message , Alex writes

We at Reading Beerex have tried just about every known system for collecting the money, and that one did take the biscuit. It'll be different at Hudds next year, trust me.

Cash has one major disadvantage: you need to waste one full-time equivalent person watching the other volunteers to make sure they aren't pocketing the money.

Tokens have one advantage: if the customer's too drunk to tear them off you needn't serve him. And it's funny watching some of them struggle with the tokens. OK, two advantages, they weed out the drunks and provide entertainment. And they can make patterns by tearing selected tokens out of the sheet. Three advantages...

Maybe we'll have tokens again next year.

and you can print them on red paper using a RISC OS provided dither pattern for part of the print - which seems to screw just about every copier around into producing blobby copies. (Yes, some sad sods actually take tokens home and try copying them)

More entertainment? >:-)

One disadvantage... With all the cash is in one place, a thief has only one person to hold up.

It's often said that beer festivals are a showcase and a recruiting ground, but surely you aren't going to recruit people to real ale by first making them exchange their money for some kind of shekels. Won't it just seem odd and parochial to the first timer? Doesn't it serve to ghettoise real ale?

Why is it so difficult to deal with change, every other cash business has to do it? Tough, deal with it, get more professional. It's this kind of amateurishness that makes beer festivals a laughing stock to many people.

You seem to be reinventing the wheel. It's weird......(incredulous shake of head)......