A pint and a half, or a pint in a half

I was in a busy pub in central London last night and went up to the bar to buy a couple of drinks.

"A pint and a half of Coors*, please," I said to the barman.

He went off to start pouring the drinks and then came back to ask me: "Was that a pint and a half, or a pint in a half?"

A pint in a half? A half in a pint (glass), possibly, but not the other way round. I would have liked to see him try, though.


*Just to clarify - I don't normally drink this watery, bland lager.

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...