A pile of cost increases heaped on the pub industry next month by Rachel Reeves and the Labour Government will push the average price of a pint of beer above £5 for the first time, bosses have warned. The Telegraph has more.
The British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) said a combination of higher taxes and increases in the minimum wage will mean the average cost of a pint of beer is to surge by 4.4%, rising faster than the current rate of inflation.
This means drinkers can expect to pay an average of £5.01 per pint in Britain compared with the current price of £4.80, it said, citing a survey by Frontier Economics.
In London, the average price of a pint hit £6.75 last year, according to a survey by the personal finance website Finder – meaning a similar 4.4% increase would see the price of some pints approach or even breach the £7 mark.
The soaring price of beer in Britain has been blamed on a string of cost increases heaped on brewers, pubs and drinks companies.
Bosses have warned about the inflationary impact of Rachel Reeves’s decision to increase employers’ National Insurance contributions (NICs) and lower the threshold for earnings at which they are paid from £9,100 to £5,000. At the same time, businesses face a 6.7% rise in the minimum wage.
Emma McClarkin, Chief Executive of the BBPA, said: “The cumulative impact of these taxes and regulations is now plain to see and it is highly unfortunate that the only way many pubs can remain viable is to pass on the array of upcoming costs to consumers.
“No one wants to see the cost of an average pint increase by a further 21p and break the £5 average pint barrier that will be required for pubs to maintain their punishingly slim profit margins.”
Because hospitality companies often rely on lower-paid and part-time staff, chiefs have accused the Chancellor of disproportionately hammering pubs and restaurants compared to other industries by moving the threshold for NICs. …
In total, the BBPA said the impact of new costs from Ms Reeves’s October budget alone would amount to a hit of approximately £650 million for the beer and pub industry.
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This is appalling — I remember when a pint in London cost 70 pence, and for the cost of one £5.00 pint now, you could once have bought a round for 7 people and still had 10 pence left towards crisps & pork scratchings.
As the Campaign for Real Ale said years ago, the plan was to make people buy cheap lager in supermarkets and drink at home alone, instead of going down to the pub, where they might discuss politics and plot revolution, according to the Globalists.
1971, 14.5p pint of bitter.
Wow— was that actually in London, where everything is more expensive than elsewhere in the country?
No – it was in NE England. Vaux bitter.
In the student hall bar circa 1973/74 I used to pull pints of IPA for 13.5 p. Those really were the days. We didn’t know how lucky we were.
Thank you… I’m sure I was paying 10p for a pint of mild, back then, but people tell me I couldn’t possibly have done. Your evidence suggests I am probably correct!
My example was for a brewery-owned pub in a large town in NE England, but pubs in villages were cheaper and certainly prices were lower in CIU (working men’s clubs) so your 10p pint is quite likely.
And I recall petrol being on average 35p a gallon (4.2 litre) around then, and 8oz rump steak & chips at a Berni Inn for £1-25.
Those where the days
Old school blokes always told me never to talk about politics or religion in a pub, leads to the conversation getting too heated after a gallon!
Well, that’s good advice for avoiding fisticuffs, but it’s fine to discuss politics with like-minded people, and workmates don’t usually talk about religion down the pub anyway.
University of Exeter, Ram Bar 1970 Starbright 2/-, Tankard 2/6, Heineken 3/2 a pint. That is 10p, 12.5p and 16p.
Amazing. I wonder how much the uni student hall prices were subsidised?
Just get the fire pit going and invite the pals round – no last orders in the garden
I suspect that if there is a concerted effort to drive pubs out of business it might be more as part of a drive to remove alcohol consumption venues so as not to offend “new citizens”.
Good point. They do seem to like turning old pubs & churches into mosques.
Sir Two-Tier: Princess, how will this look to the Working People we con into voting for us?
Princess of Theeves: Let them drink cheap gnat’s piss from Aldi and Lidl.
Nice one!
I do get my beer from Tesco, I do buy the more expensive Dutch beer, Duvel ( triple hop 9%) Also La Choffe 8%. They’re good strong beers that you don’t need many of to knock your head off.
Big bottles of Leffe from Lidl too, even if it is the UK version at 5.5 abv instead of the Continental 6%.
Some of the “cheap gnat’s piss” from Lidl and Aldi is actually pretty decent beer. Check out the offerings from the Williams Bros Brewery, the last in the former Scottish brewing centre of Alloa. Family-owned and invariably excellent.
I’d rather support them than drink much of the brewing conglomerates’ “beer”.
Apologies to Aldi and Lidl, I didn’t realise that (and neither, I expect, does the Princess of Theeves).
I haven’t seen a beer in Aldi over 5%. I could’ve missed something though.
I have a question.
If you are overspending and racking up debt, what solutions other than getting more income or spending less are there?
I’m no fan of Reeves or any of these political puppets. But presumably at some point it’s one or both of those or financial ruin.
Cut benefits? Moan moan moan
Raise taxes? Moan moan moan.
Print money (I.e. inflation)? Moan, moan, moan.
Stop throwing money away on “creating a booming green economy”. Win, win, win.
Oh, and stop letting in illegal migrants to use up the money we legally resident taxpayers have to give the Government.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1RhTuSa8G4/
On things like driving lessons.
Sink their boats on the edge of French waters and leave them to it.
Yes CC at 22 billion, let that sink in. She should be in the Tower of London.
Cut out vast swathes of what the state finances especially quangos and subsidies.
A flat(ter) tax system would be more fair, cheaper to administer and it would raise more money.
My first pint cost 1s 8d or about 7p. I’m now getting old and pints are a weeks wage when first bought, or about £5. What will my last pint cost me? My grandson is 4: what will his pint cost him when he is my age?
I remember those Mars Bars beck around 1993 were 25p, and larger too.
Mind you, the country will be run by Muslims by then, so he won’t be able to buy a pint.
But, but, but Rache said beer would be cheaper….oh, she lied.
In response to Stewart
“If you are overspending and racking up debt, what solutions other than getting more income or spending less are there?”
Rachel from Accounts does not understand basic economic.
First increasing income by tax rises and reducing expenditure by cuts [Austerity] has a fine pedigree of not just not working but of producing the opposite result.
It is why after 14 years of Austerity under the Tories [increased average annual borrowing £126 Billion pa to £2.7 Trillion] UK Councils cannot afford to fix potholes in our roads and that Austerity is an import from the EU nutters in Brussels:
EU’s Monsieur Bonkers of Brussels Caused UK’s Potholed Roads – [and more]
EU Austerity, driven by the Germans has a long history of never working and instead of reducing borrowing and public expenditure it always does the opposite.
Austerity always results in deeper and deeper recession and increased debt and deficits. The exact opposite of why it is applied.
Austerity: The Great Failure [2014] – Professor Florian Schui University of St. Gallen.
Chapter 7 Austerity The History of a Dangerous Idea – Professor Mark Blyth:
“In general, the deployment of austerity as economic policy has been as effective in us bringing peace, prosperity, and crucially, a sustained reduction of debt, as the Mongol Golden Horde was in furthering the development of Olympic dressage. It has instead brought us class politics, riots, political instability, more rather than less debt, assassinations, and war. It has never once “done what it says on the tin.”
The only time Austerity can be used is in periods of stable growth and when other trading partner economies are not applying Austerity as well – it depresses growth but will reduce debt provided it is not applied in such a way as to push an economy into recession. If applied in a recession and when all others are doing the same you end up with the EU and Eurozone economies which are worth 65% of the US economy when 17 years ago they were worth 90%.
Paul Krugman “The Austerity Delusion” New York Times
“Why not slash deficits immediately? Because tax increases and cuts in government spending would depress economies further, worsening unemployment. And cutting spending in a deeply depressed economy is largely self-defeating even in purely fiscal terms: any savings achieved at the front end are partly offset by lower revenue, as the economy shrinks.
So jobs now, deficits later was and is the right strategy. Unfortunately, it’s a strategy that has been abandoned in the face of phantom risks and delusional hopes. On one side, we’re constantly told that if we don’t slash spending immediately we’ll end up just like Greece, unable to borrow except at exorbitant interest rates. On the other, we’re told not to worry about the impact of spending cuts on jobs because fiscal austerity will actually create jobs by raising confidence.”
Austerity is still a dangerous idea: a conversation with Mark Blyth “Who is benefiting and who is losing. That’s really what matters.” Elias Rutten Feb 11, 2025
I’m always mystified by the reaction to a chancellor’s announcement that they’re taking a penny off a pint… rapturous, performative cheers from the benches behind her, as if none of them can work out that the pub goer will have to drink 500 pints to afford just one more ‘free’ as a result of this largesse…
Maybe it is because they are all as bad at economics as Rachel is.
No one is that bad.
Pooor Uk and you wonder why people are staying home and away from pubs. What a hellhole your country has become.
Atomised, feminized, infantilised. Made to wear the pink panties of submission although I daresay there were many who didn’t need much coaxing. And here we are the abomination of desolation. I think it was Andre Gide who said that if the English ever lose their pubs then they should go and drown themselves because that will be the end of whatever was left of merry old England.