Price of a Pint

Don't forget the world oil price is at an all time high, and we transport goods by road consuming oil-based products at every stage of the supply chain. This has probably been factored in to the headline figure.

Yes I'm sure you're right, but why can't newspapers say this rather than saying "The average price of a pint of beer could hit £4 after poor weather forced up the price of hops."?

M Platting a écrit :

Because some big brewers can certainly be trusted to have such disdain for drinker's intelligence that they believe they can get away with such a price hike using this excuse.

In message , MPlatting@?.?.invalid wrote

Tell the general public that beer is £4 a pint and listen to the trade complaining that people have stopped going to pubs. The smoking ban will be blamed and not the increase in prices.

Around my way real ale prices have risen by around 5 times the rate of 'official' inflation in the last year. However, beer from the same brewery, delivered on the same wagon can be sold for between £2.50 and £3.10 in 'ordinary' pubs within a few miles of each other.

Invalid argument. It doesn't matter that water makes 90% of the ingredients of beer, because it certainly doesn't make 90% of the costs of the ingredients of beer. If more than 50% of the cost of making beer is the price of barley and hops, then an increase in the price of said ingredients will significantly affect the cost of making beer.

And you can get relatively cheap beer bottled in supermarkets (I think Tesco has 20% off all bottled ales and ciders at the moment, making Adnam's Explorer £1.22 a bottle). If you think of pubs being similar to restaurants rather than supermarkets then it makes some sense that they're charging some markup.

Having said what I said above, I agree that beer is already too expensive for what it is. Living in London I've gotten complacent and I'm used to paying more than £3 a pint regularly but deep down I think it's an outrage, especially when there are pubs like Wetherspoons who show it is entirely possible not to charge such silly prices.

And also the cost of making beer is only one of the costs of a brewing business - there's also transport, admin, marketing, etc etc so the rise in price of hops and barley shouldn't be all that noticable at the end of the process.

Indeed. This story is obviously based on a press release from one of the big brewers. The drinks industry has been forcing up the price of beer, particularly cask beer, for about 5 years. The idea that it is becoming cheaper in real terms is simply wrong - the price has risen way above the rate of inflation. Rising production costs and taxes only account for a small part of this increase.

The result of this greedy short sighted policy is thousands of closed pubs and good landlords facing bankruptcy.

Paul

Hi

Excellent point. I can make good quality homebrew - comparable to the best real ale bought over a bar (so my scrounging friends tell me) - for less than 20p per pint. I don't use kits but brew "properly", buying my homebrew supplies in bulk (25 kilo sacks of whole grain) and start by milling my own grain, which keeps costs down.

However, if I had to charge for labour, insurance, cleaning, etc, then it works out far cheaper to buy it over the bar in a pub.

Regards KGB

In message , Tim wrote

The OP has paid the majority of the costs you list.

The OP purchased his beer so it includes wages, rent, insurance, licence, vat, cleaning, business rates, depreciation on plant and advertising incurred by the brewer.

The OP commented that the same beer was in the pubs in his area for around £2 so the £1.20 difference reflects the additional costs incurred by the publican. In my location the same beer is likely to be closer to £3 rather than £2 in pubs.

The industry is saying that that £2 is not enough and it should rise to an average of £4! Pure greed by the brewing industry and likely to backfire when fewer people visit pubs.

Because then people would be less likely to post links to the story on newsgroups, and thereby send eyeballs in the direction of whatever adverts are on the page in question?!

Agreed, but then the bastards can sell the place for 'development', which is what a lot of them seem to want to do.

OK I have to accept that one! It's one reason I never go to any restaurant other than the cheapest curry house and eat as much as you like buffets!

True, but, keeping things within the licensed trade, chains such as Wetherspoons seem to make a good living selling beer at £1.49. Of course I realise that their buying power means they get beer at significant wholesale discounts, but I bet they're not making as much per pint as most pubs. And, judging by their share price, they've got the right strategy. And how can any beer drinker disagree? £5 will get you 3 pints at JDW's and 2 at many other places, even less at others (unless your local is owned by one of the more enlightened brewers, like Holts of Manchester or Sam Smiths)

And this is just what's happening. More and more people are staying at home, buying a barrel and getting friends and neighbours to chip in to cover the cost. Result? Very often a pub atmosphere, with cheap beer and no problems with drunken 'yoof' or other undesirables.

Yes, I agree totally. In the immortal words of the 'League of Gentlemen', it's a s*it business. And it's going to get far far worse, as the anti-this-and-that lobby step up their anti-alcohol campaigns. Even now, 56 pubs are closing every month. I really cannot see how rising prices (and my original posting was simply about the fear that increased hop prices would lead to the £4 pint) are going to help pubs.

Dealing with the price increases first,on top of fuel costs the brewers are looking at a malt price rise of 40% (and lucky if they can get as much as they need) while hops have gone up from around £6 a kilo to £16.My local brewers are looking at having to raise prices by about 10% as a break even figure. If you drink in a pub of course you are paying for more than just the beer.My local for example is always well staffed by people who know their business,there is a try before you buy policy, all beer pumps have beer drawn off before any is sold.The landlord gets on average 64 pints out of a firkin because of this, but the beer is always in top condition. There is a proper log fire , a supply of daily papers and so on.

By the way, a barrel for £60 works out at just over 20 pence a pint.Who is selling at this price?

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 17:50:09 +0000, M Platting wrote (in message ):

You seem to be missing something - Wethersoons are all-expense-spared shiteholes.

Wetherspoons buy beer near its sell-by date at a knock-down price which is why they can sell it so cheap.

sorry my mistake - I meant a firkin (72 pints)

Speaking to a well known Northern Micro brewer last week in Salford he had no complaints about

supplying Wetherspoons. Was not screwed on price and got paid on time.

He also stated that crap micros didn't fare so well. If it wasn't of saleable quality it went back.

There are things about Wetherspoons we may not like but they are the only major pub chain who

try to get more people into pubs. Most other chains just tend to rip-off their customers.

Hence the reason we seem to choose tickers pubs were we can.

This urban myth refuses to go away, presumably encouraged by landlords resentful of local JDW competition. JDW is a huge managed estate and couldn't possibly be supplied by short dated overstocks. The prices are cheap because they negotiate large discounts from suppliers and operate on a lower GP than the rest of the licensed trade (that's why the pubs need to be so big).

Paul

One of the reasons that some micros never have their products in a spoons outlet - plain and simply they would have to ditch all other customers in order to meet the supply deal and make very little out of it, then when the spoons beer of the month turned to something else they have to try and woo the local customers back again. Micros need to be either not so micro or desperate for customers to enter into the deal.

This, if true, is scandalous. Can you substantiate it? Are you prepared to say what you've said here in court?

If Wetherspoons are doing this, they should be exposed. I've copied this thread to them.