How old this news?
Guinness cost at least £3.30 in pubs already and have for last year or twos.
Guinness to hit three quid a pint
The RRP of a pint of Guinness will rise by 10p to £3.03 on 1 February, producer Diageo has announced. In further grim tidings for drinkers, brewer AB InBev - which counts Beck's, Budweiser, Staropramen and Stella Artois on its roster of brews - "will increase the wholesale price of all its drinks products by an average of 4p a …
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Friday 8th January 2010 12:58 GMT Nazar
DIY
Its time you got the following:
30 Litre bucket with lid
King Keg 5 gallon Pressure Barrel (top or bottom tap)
EDME Irish Stout kit
1KG Beer enhancer (Spray dried malt, dextrose meritose)
Two weeks
to produce 40 pints of lovely stout. The first batch comes out at £2 a pint. Subsequent batches cost 38 pence a pint.
The above should definitely appeal to all the pc system builders amongst us. The wife can attest that the produced product is, "some of the best stout I've had".
http://www.wineworks.co.uk are recommended for supplies
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Friday 8th January 2010 14:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
you forgot the CO2 canister
and sterilizing liquid (babies bottle stuff works well).
I would recommend
Coopers Stout or
Brewmaker Irish Velvet
over the EDME
and always use Beer enhancer rather then a bag of sugar from Tesco.
The more expensive 2 tin kits aren't necessary for stout but they really make a difference with the bitters and do try a porter if you get the chance.
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Monday 11th January 2010 11:01 GMT Steve Roper
Home brewing
Damn I hate how the Reg comments lands on the second page first... missed this post when I posted mine!
I suggest Munton's Stout brewing kits if you can get them over there - it's the one most like Guinness I've found. And to the AC who uses CO2 canisters: Don't. Use carbonation drops when you bottle up and let the remaining yeast do the carbonation naturally. The result is much smoother and you get a much creamier head instead of a hissing pile of froth!
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Friday 8th January 2010 13:04 GMT TeeCee
Oh yeah? Translation required here.
What he said: “This is good news. I totally believe in minimum pricing. Without doubt it is the supermarkets causing the binge-drinking problems and they need their knuckles wrapped.”
What he meant: “This is good news. I totally believe in minimum pricing. Without doubt it is the supermarkets' prices that stop us charging whatever the fuck we'd like to fleece our punters for and I want a new Jaguar.”
A North Eastern pub chain holder speaking out against binge-drinking? In other news today, eight out of ten Turkeys (who expressed a preference) said that they were very much in favour of Christmas.
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Friday 8th January 2010 14:06 GMT Ross 7
Title
You don't know Tony do you? He prefers a Harley to a Jag.
You also seem to have overlooked the supermarket practice of subsidising one area of goods with another. You honestly reckon the supermarkets make a profit on their beer offers? No, they make a loss, but as you're there getting beer you also buy all your other stuff so they make a profit all round. No pub can ever compete with that unless they start selling Andrex, Aquafresh, tins of beans and bread.
I'm all for cheap beer! But if the supermarkets put almost all the pubs out of business where are you going to go out for a drink? And do you honestly think the prices will stay low once competition has been expunged?
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Friday 8th January 2010 16:09 GMT markp 1
yep
That's how we did it in my student days, when even pound-a-pint on sharable jugs of fosters p*ss was still cause for questioning how much of your loan and summertime earnings were left.
Got about the illest I have ever been on a pint of "warm up" screwdriver: 4 of you pitch in for a litre each of value so-called "vodka" (rubbing alcohol with tap water and artificial flavouring) and nasty "orange" "juice", both from the local Lidl... mix them in a 1:1 ratio in pint glasses, down the hatch with a pinched nose. Make sure you've had your cheese + waffles / beans on toast / spag bol beforehand to avoid burning TOO big a hole in your stomach. Without the scran I'd probably have been in hospital...
In any case, you're then good to go and you're just about inside the dingy local nightclub when it hits you. Suitably lubricated, you can now throw shapes all night on a rotating menu of water, weak pepsi and, for the truly committed college waster, one or two further 1-quid pints of piss.
"Minimum RETAIL price of 50p per unit"? ... given inflation that still means hardly any increase I reckon. Pubs have already mostly dropped £/pint and gone to £1.50 or £2, which is about the equivalent of a pound a unit depending on the strength of drink. I bet if I was to revisit my uni town, Paddy's "one pound triple vodka + coke" special would be no more :( About the only thing it might properly affect is tesco's value lager & bitter (maybe?), white lightning and those massive crates of tiny bottles of "french biere blonde" that we were also once quite fond of, before being tempted by the dark side (we're all now earning a lot more money but still penniless thanks to our promotion to Lords of the CAMRA).
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Friday 8th January 2010 23:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
Even at 40p a unit
Even at 40p a unit this is over what I pay for almost everything I buy from off-licenses. There's 27 units in a typical bottle of spirits, which means a minimum of £13.50 - currently I'm paying around £9 so that's an increase of 50%, and that's pretty much any off-license so it's not a supermarket loss-leader. There would be a roughly a hike in the price of the majority of canned beers.
Of course the brunt of it would be borne by poor people much more than problem drinkers, who are often reasonably well-paid people who live with their parents and have very moderate outgoings, or robbers.
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Friday 8th January 2010 16:09 GMT Jay Castle
They may well start......
......by drinking at home, but they're not 'puking their ring' before they go into the pubs, are they? If so, then they should be barred entry, by law.
The reality appears to be that both supermarkets and pubs bear a measure of responsibility.
This guy laying the blame only on supermarkets is simply an attempt to divert blame.
That said, the lions share of any 'blame' for the state these people (me included, at times) get into rests completley with the people themselves.
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Friday 8th January 2010 13:57 GMT Rotate anti-clockwise ...
@John 90
Why is it more expensive here in Ireland? Are we just happy (aka pi**ed) to pay any old price without complaining, or too stinkin' proud to complain that the price tears the hell out of our pockets?
Mine's the one with the (even more expensive) pint bottle of Bulmers (Magners) in the pocket!
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Friday 8th January 2010 13:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
How does a:
£3.00(UKP) Squid Beer help the Pubs??
Do these 'dolts think I ~excrete~ Gold Nuggets (or somethin')?
Perhaps if these "Brewers" would lower or at least attempted to match the cheep Supermarket stuff, the Pubs would like be able to pull in more business.
One wonders how the BOFH and the PFY are goin to take this news??
Hopefully they can chuck a few of these morons down a few flights of stairs.
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Friday 8th January 2010 13:10 GMT Christopher W
Bloody minimum pricing... I need a beer
I don't go to the pub that often mostly because of my work schedule - usually so knackered by the time I get back, I just collapse in front of the TV with some food and a quick pint in the evening. When I'm at the supermarket I'll buy a multipack (but I find myself buying more and more local/regional ales).
They're not doing themselves any favours promoting minimum pricing - I won't be able to afford to buy as much beer - and I'm a very sensible drinker - my money will end up being spent on (probably) the real ales, as they taste nicer... And if they cost the same as a can of Carling or Guinness for example, I'll simply only buy the ales as they're better value for money. The hardcore who binge drink will continue to do so irrespective of pricing, and the regular people who buy supermarket beer because it's a bit cheaper than the pub will just get pissed off and not bother as much.
Good job there.
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Friday 8th January 2010 13:10 GMT Kevin Dwyer
But its Medicine! It should be available on prescription.
I can remember my first pint of the black stuff, I was in a pub called The Swan at Yardley in Birmingham, way back in the early seventies. Took a quick slurp and the glass was half empty, wow, that was easy. Never looked back. When I got into long ( ultra) distance running I noticed that for quite a few of my fellow head bangers it was the beverage of choice.
There used to be a 30 mile road race which started and finished at the Tudor Rose in Old Coulsden, London, ( SLH 30) It was held on a Saturday with a 2pm start ( this was in the days before all day opening ) perfect timing, finish the race, get changed and in to the pub to rehydrate with a few pints of the black stuff. One weekend I ran the SLH 30 on the Saturday, the Bolton Marathon the following day and also managed to get 16 pints of Guinness down as well - 2 races, 2 gallons!
Nowadays its more likely to be 10k and 2 pints :-(
Happy days, thank you Arthur Guinness
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Friday 8th January 2010 13:10 GMT Rick Berry
No, it won't
"The news comes as the government's health committee has suggested a minimum alcohol retail price of 50p per unit - an attempt to stop supermarkets punting cheap booze and fuelling the UK's binge-drinking epidemic.
This minimum would, the report suggests, save 3,000 lives a year while helping to boost the UK's pub trade."
If they do that, lists will quickly appear on the internet about which bottle of booze gives you the most alcohol per serving for the lowest cost...
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Friday 8th January 2010 13:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
Minimum pricing
"Tony Brookes, managing director of North East-based pub company Head of Steam, enthused to The Publican: “This is good news. I totally believe in minimum pricing. Without doubt it is the supermarkets causing the binge-drinking problems and they need their knuckles wrapped.”"
Yeah, it's in no way promotional drinking in pubs/clubs that is a problem. "buy two shots, get one free!". And not Tony just trying to prevent overpricing being stopped in pubs. £3 for a single vodka (25ml) where any other retail outlet (supermarket or not) will sell 700ml for less than £15. The pub will undoubtedly obtain these bottles at wholesale for a very very healthy markup.
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Friday 8th January 2010 13:13 GMT The BigYin
50p per unit?
Let's see that tried out in a test market...say the bars in Westminster...and then rolled out nation wide if it is a success.
But that would mean MPs having to suffer and obey the law...never going to happen in the cesspit of corruption and deceit that passes for our Parliament.
And what about all the cheap booze MEPs can access (subsidised champagne etc), will they be putting a stop to that? No, thought not.
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Friday 8th January 2010 13:13 GMT Reading Your E-mail
Fail+
"an attempt to stop supermarkets punting cheap booze and fuelling the UK's binge-drinking epidemic."
Once again a classic example of not knowing what the hell they are talking about. There is nothing else to do in this country, the weather and/or Health and Safety have killed off everything else. You can make alcohol as expensive as you like but people will still buy it if there is nothing else to do. You put up the cost of that and you'll have to jack up the jobseekers allowance too ;)
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Friday 8th January 2010 16:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Get a grip
"There is nothing else to do in this country, the weather and/or Health and Safety have killed off everything else."
Really? Are you really sure about that? I strongly suggest you go and get a grip of yourself. If there is nothing to do, then it is because YOU have DECIDED to do nothing. Take some responsibility for your own actions/inactions.
Here's a few simple ideas:
1) Read a book!
2) Buy a board game, get a few friends round, play. It's called "social interaction" and it's really rather good.
3) Get a hobby.
4) Take some exercise.
5) Do all those little jobs that you meant to do.
If you really think 'elf 'n safteh has gone too far, then start a campaign against it. That'll give you something to do. But to sit on your own fundament and just moan, moan, moan without doing anything? It's people like you who are the downfall of this country; you expect everything to be done for you. And if you don't like the weather, you can always leave.
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Friday 8th January 2010 13:14 GMT Pete 2
Coulda sworn it was the drinkers' fault
> Without doubt it is the supermarkets causing the binge-drinking problems
So, presumably if the price of bread was slashed that would cause outbreaks of uncontrollable sandwich eating. While I'm familiar with the concept of price elasticity, I have a hard time accepting that there is a causal link between low booze prices and excessive drinking. For example, pop across the channel (if the trains are running) and you'll be "confronted" with cheap booze. Go to Spain and you can buy tinnies for 17cents a pop - or a litre of brandy for 6 euros.
Yet in these countries we don't see either the same level of adolescent drunkenness that the tabloids here obsess about, nor the same level of intolerance towards people who've had "one too many" - possibly because they just sleep it off, rather than smashing the place up.
Maybe the problem has nothing to do with the _price_ of booze and everything to do with british yoof's inability to control him/her/it-self and the press' desire to pander to the tiny minority of small-minded moralists who are the only people who buy such newspapers.
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Friday 8th January 2010 14:04 GMT Blake St. Claire
@John 90 Re: So cheap!
| Guinness is a fiver a pint here in Dublin. Most of the other beers are around the same price.
You're drinking in the wrong pubs I guess. I was just in Dublin last week and never paid more than about €4 for a pint of G. -- e.g. at The Bleeding Horse or the hotel bar. I've still got the receipts to prove it.
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Friday 8th January 2010 14:04 GMT DEAD4EVER
guinness pint
3 pound 3 pence good id say put all booze up make every drink over 5 pound that would hopefully kill binge drinking which is a disgrace in this country and if it comes to even bad measures ban it altogether that would make me happy. i never touch booze anyway so it dont concern me at all booze drugs and cigarettes all should be banned. i must admit i did drink but this was ages ago all it was is fosters baileys mostly but now ive never touched a drop since i only drank when i visited my friend but ive never visited my friend in a year or 2 so i say keep increasing the prices do it
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Friday 8th January 2010 14:18 GMT Andy Pullin
Beer in pubs isn't so much the rip-off - soft drinks are!
£2.50 for a pint of Coke, made on a machine from tap water, a box of concentrate and a bottle of CO2?
Local off licence Coke (the real thing bottled in the factory) is £1 for 2 litres.
Way to encourage people not to drink and drive? Make soft drinks MUCH cheaper than alcohol. Then families might be able to afford to come to your pub, and eat, and spend money, thus increasing your business, no?
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Friday 8th January 2010 16:09 GMT Alex Rose
@Andy Pullin
"£2.50 for a pint of Coke, made on a machine from tap water, a box of concentrate and a bottle of CO2?
Local off licence Coke (the real thing bottled in the factory) is £1 for 2 litres."
How do you think "the real thing" is made in these factories? Tap water, CO2 and syrup supplied by Coca-Cola.
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Friday 8th January 2010 23:37 GMT Paul Randle
@ Andy Pullin
When you buy drinks in a pub, you are not just paying for the drink. You are paying for the cost of the premises, the staff, all the legal hoo-haa that goes with licenced premises, heating. lighting, security, insurance etc etc. The cost of a drink is typically about a third of the price you pay.
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Friday 8th January 2010 14:25 GMT MGB
no title
“This is good news. I totally believe in minimum pricing. Without doubt it is the supermarkets causing the binge-drinking problems and they need their knuckles wrapped.”
Since when did the piss-head community in city centres all get their booze anywhere else than bars, pubs and clubs? I never saw any dragging Tesco carrier bags full of the stuff around?!?
Here in Germany you can buy a beer cheaper than water almost anywhere/anytime, people drink in the streets and supermarkets have beers from 5€ a crate yet there are no such social problems?
Why aren't those causing the trouble punished, instead of punishing everyone else two fold through over-charging for going out to have a drink, and having to deal with the implications of the problem not actually being tackled. The police should be arresting drunks and then dishing out appropriate punishment, not pushing them out of the centres to vandalise and destroy anything in their path, free from the possibility of the police bringing them to justice because they are too busy pushing more people away to terrorise the rest of us. Yet again the government prove their only real goal is to tax the lifeblood out of the people whilst failing to tackle anything.
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Friday 8th January 2010 15:51 GMT Gareth
Low prices != binge drinking
Here in the US you can buy a six pack of cheap lager for under $4, vodka for $10/750ml. Bars will sell you a pint of generic lager for $1-$3.
Yet people here drink far less than they do in Blighty, and I think I've seen one or two minor scuffles in the 3 years I've been here (compared to seeing serious injuries and near-riots nearly every time I went out in the UK).
Now I am no longer broke after buying a couple of pints I'll often go out for a meal or to watch a movie as part of my evening out, rather than just spending the whole night in the pub.
The whole "cheap booze leads to binge drinking" idea is completely wrong - it just pushes people to extremes. They'll either quit drinking so they can afford to do other things, or stop doing other things so they can afford to drink.
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Friday 8th January 2010 15:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
bowel bothering Guiness that they sell..
in England should be banned - brewed in Dublin but a constant bowel botherer over here.
I still can't make out why a pint of Guiness in Paris or Milan tastes better than one in London.
Could it be the shite barstaff here especially in London???
same thing was happening in Dublin last time I was there - shite staff who didn't know the difference between pouring a Pint of G (Gods Milk) and some shite kangaroo pee...
Reminds of the London bargirl who after managing to pour a half decent PInt of G for me then scooped off most of the head with a knife as it was too "fluffy" - gave up with G over here after that.
off with their heads!
It's Friday and I'm in bad mood!
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Friday 8th January 2010 16:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Come... ON!!
Oh do come on and see the light:
The UK is going down the swanage quicker than Gordo can drop hs chin to breathe. We're in vast amounts of debt, and the one thing that helps the recession is havnig a drink.
.... dawned on you yet?
Tax the drinks and make more money off us, whilst Labour starts patting backs for "bringing us out of the recession using our plans and strategies".
I for one welcome our soon-to-be-in-power Blue beer-drinking bretheren..
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Friday 8th January 2010 19:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Come... ON!!
> "I for one welcome our soon-to-be-in-power Blue beer-drinking bretheren.."
There seems to be a lot of Tory-lovers on here at the moment - where'd you all come from? I'm rather less enthusiastic having still vivid memories of the control-freakery, incompetence and excess of the Thatcher years - remarkably like today's gov't, in fact.
And since I got castigated for being a "Labour Spindoctor" by the hard-of-thinking just a day ago (the likelihood of which is why I decided to post anonymously), let me point out that I think the current shower are just as bad, though I suspect the functionally illiterate will have already written this off as being composed by Gordon Brown himself by this point.
That aside, I do agree that quality of life is the issue here: trying to tackle drinking itself is putting the cart before the horse since people are drinking more and more because they're over-taxed, over-worked and over-regulated. So along comes another proposed tax hike in the wake of another price rise, guess what that's going to do. Oh yeah, under-represented, too, which is why a bad situation keeps being made worse. Meanwhile, binge drinking becomes more ingrained in our culture and is used as evidence by our lords and betters that we can't be trusted and that we need them to force the issue for us.
We do need a political overhaul in this country, but the Tories aren't the ones to do it. Neither are Labour. Neither are the Lib Dems. God only knows who can and will do it, though.
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Friday 8th January 2010 16:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
remembrance du temps perdu
Three quid a pint? I'm old enough to rememeber when it was three shillings a pint.
As for this: 'Tony Brookes, managing director of North East-based pub company Head of Steam, enthused to The Publican: “This is good news. I totally believe in minimum pricing'', is this the first 2010 sighting of a turkey voting for an early christmas.
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Saturday 9th January 2010 00:16 GMT disgruntled yank
US drinking
@Gareth:
Happened to note this lunch time that a bar on L St. NW in Washington, DC, (business district) offers pints for $5. I think Guinness was on the list, I know Smithwick was.
Americans seem to me to drink at least as much as is good for them. Heaven help the English if they drink that much more.
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Saturday 9th January 2010 00:17 GMT ThinkingOutLoud
Alcohol pricing
Folks,
If kids and adults are determined to get pissed into an early grave, they will sell their mothers to happy Arab traders for a bottle of their best brew. Price per unit will never exceed price per relative, pet, neighbour's LCD TV.
Unless and until we deal with our binge drinking culture, we're FUBAR.
See you all on a weekend High St. night...
Paris because I'd like to take her away from the High St. and... never mind.
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Saturday 9th January 2010 12:11 GMT BarryMc
Could expense cause bingeing?
Just a scenario, no basis behind this....
If booze is made *too* expensive, that could this lead to more bingeing?
i.e. Can't afford to go out too often, so save my money and go out for a large one each payday?
We assume that the binge drinkers are doing this week after week. But, it could be that people are just doing it once per pay cycle?
And, there has to be a magical threshold, whereby it gets too expensive which causes moonshine/fake booze to seem more attractive, and those come with additional risks/dangers.
Mines a pint. Guinness, if they've got it, and know how to pour it. Failing that, generic lager will do.
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Sunday 10th January 2010 18:31 GMT Shane Orahilly
Two things
1) @Nazar:
"The wife can attest that the produced product is, "some of the best stout I've had"."
What would the wife know about it? Has she been breaking The Rules? Get her some white wine or a fruit-based drink.
2) Drinking responsibly - The only way to do this is to not drink alcohol at all. I therefore accept that I'm irresponsible, but I really, really hate the use of such an oxymoronic statement.
Pint - for the fella.
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Monday 11th January 2010 12:51 GMT Tony Rogers
Rick Stein's £7.00p a Pint !
Had a lunch there 18months ago In Padstow Cornwall.
Requested a half pint of excellent local cider and a half of Italian lager for guest.
When bill arrived it was £3.50p for each half ! Guiness was the same I think.
I'am no Einstein but thats £7.00p per pint by my reckoning...outrageous ?
Elsewhere in Cornwall Guiness at regular pubs has been £3.00p + for years.
A vrey nice "Bin End" Red for £30.00p as a compensation though.
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Monday 11th January 2010 10:18 GMT c0rruptd
What the...?
Wait, let me get this straight... Your all worried that you pay a total of 3 pounds for a pint? Shall we try on some Australian pricing for a while? At about AU$10 per pint, I think that comes across as just under 6 pounds a pint...
And you think your getting gouged?
However, on the bright side, if you want proof that higher prices don't curb binge-drinking, we have a nation full of evidence. =D
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Monday 11th January 2010 10:22 GMT allister ferguson
TAX TAX TAX
This is a classic drip drip drip of the government preparing us for another tax increase.... because it is for our own good. I remember when pubs controlled the sale of alcohol both on site and off door..... they really ripped everybody off selling the off site beer for the same price as the pint inside the pub. The pub trade would love to get back to that situation. (and my dad brwed his own!) Maybe what is need is to find out why alot of people are drinking too much... is it because we are the most un happy people in europe? Why are we so unhappy and just want to get ourselves to getting drunk.
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Monday 11th January 2010 11:01 GMT Steve Roper
This is why
I brew my own. You think you have it bad? Our government in Australia hikes the price of alcohol every year and sometimes more often to try to curb "binge drinking". A pint of Guinness costs around $8 AUD (so nearly FIVE quid to you) and a six-pack is now around $35-$40 AUD (that's around 6 pints). For about that amount and a couple of weeks in the fermenter I can produce 40+ pints of very passable Guinness. Enough for me and all my mates to enjoy at home; it's been months since any of us set foot in a pub (except my brother who works in one) with the high prices, drink limits, smoking bans and all. Better to come round my place, where we can smoke, get pissed as we want, for bugger-all, and stay overnight to avoid drink-driving (Ah, the benefits of not being married! 8-) ).
Brewing your own takes a bit of care, you have to make sure everything is sterile, mix your ingredients properly at the right temperatures, and ferment at the proper temperature, but once you get it down pat as I have it's well worth the effort. Protip: Don't buy the cheap brewing kits you see in supermarkets. Go to a specialty home-brewing shop, it's not that much more expensive and the improvement in quality is WELL worth it.
All this price-hiking and other anti-alcohol/anti-smoking/anti-anything-fun crap has done is drive people like me and my mates to start brewing our own booze and staying away from the pubs. The world is no longer a friendly place.
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Monday 11th January 2010 11:17 GMT jon 72
Taste the difference
Asked a barman about this once, turns out that some staff are a tad lazy and do not rinse the pipes through after they have had the cleaning solution run through them.
Used to regulary get free guiness at my local, the landlord would always pull a few pints through after cleaning to check the flavour, the rejected ones were left on the bar for those in need. This was indeed 'bowel bothering ' stuff but when your 18 and 'Piston Broke' then you grab what you can. Even so, the thick creamy head is still an aquired taste.
Paris because..
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Tuesday 12th January 2010 14:09 GMT Ned Fowden
but, think of the advantages
Diageo are marking it up with the increases in tax on alcohol so they can continue making the same level of profits !
personally i don't give a stuff, guiness is a filthy foul brew anyway
mwuahahahaha, keep up the good work
on a side note, i don't like paying £15 for a 70cl bottle of vodka in Tesco's
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
