The £4 pint of beer is here. Maybe

Not for the first time recently, I've been reading about the soaring price of a pint of beer here in the capital. This time it was on the front page of today's Metro free paper:

In London the average price of a pint – at £4.06 – is dearer than a hit of heroin

I don't know much about the price of heroin, but neither do I know any pubs in London that charge £4 a pint. The pubs near where I live (a fairly nice bit of Zone 3) charge around the £3 mark; you might pay £3.30 in a gastropub.

Ah, but what about all those expensive bars – surely they push the price up? Possibly, but many of the swanky ones sell bottles, not pints, and the ones that do sell expensive pints will be more than compensated for by cheapo chains such as JD Wetherspoon (no relation) that charge nearer the £2 mark. And for every pub that sells a £2 pint, there must be another that sells a £6 pint to make the average £4.

So my question to any Londoners out there is: where are these £4-a-pint (or more) pubs? Or is the Metro article just shoddy journalism? Sorry, I know that's two questions...

What price a pint?

PS I can imagine that many of our American readers will respond to this post with shock and/or smugness...

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I suppose, technically, drinking bottled beer (which might go for say £3.50 for 330ml) might mean that it would set you back around £5.50 if you took the contents of those bottles and poured them into a pint glass. I guess you could probably get up to "six pounds a pint" in the more expensive establishments, in terms of the money you are paying for the volume of liquid consumed.

That's more of a technical explanation than a reasonable argument in favour of the article, though, for which I hold the Metro's usual piss-poor journalism entirely to blame.

Anonymous said...

I have never pain £4 for a pint Although I might have paided nearer the £2 mark for a half, which I think are sometimes slightly more expensive than halving the price of a pint, if that makes sense??

But yes I agree, bad journalism by Metro!

Anonymous said...

Well, having just got back from Ireland, I'm not shocked that my US dollars wouldn't (converted to pounds) get me so far in beer buying there as here.

Roy said...

As someone who does not live in London but travels there quite regularly I think that there is a myth about London beer prices. My experience is that it is generally no more expensive in the capital than where I live in Cheltenham (there will be exceptions, of course, but there are here too)although Gloucestershire people who never go to London would tell you differently. Where they get their information is a mystery - just an anti-London thing I guess.

Roy said...

Ah, forgot to mention: it's good to see a discussion on something of national importance appearing on this site!

JD (The Engine Room) said...

Well, I am off to the regions this Easter weekend so I will take it upon myself to conduct some in-depth research into beer prices in various locales. For the good of the country, you understand...

John Share said...

I have just paid £3.50 for a pint of Green King Abbots Ale, in Horsham West Sussex. And the pub was more Gastric than Gastro!