back to article Beer set to hit four quid a pint

Booze industry experts have issued a chilling warning that the British pint could hit £4 a pop - a price hike provoked by crap weather which has forced up the price of hops. According to a sobering Guardian report, the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) estimates the average jar at £2.50 for lager, and £2.20 for bitter. …

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  1. Danny
    Dead Vulture

    Noooooooooooooooooooo

    Sobs quietly into his last pint of reasonably priced beer

    No coat/No door, I am making this one last awhile!

  2. Paul
    Joke

    Noooooo!!!!!!!

    IT in the UK is doomed!!

    As for "higher aluminium, cereal and crude oil (prices)" worryes me a little. What the hell are they putting in there beer.

  3. Dave

    Well, i'll be ok

    Round where i come from, a decent pint of the local brew will cost you around £1.80 or so, i can't see it hitting £4..ever

  4. John Williams
    Unhappy

    Oh please God no!

    If this happens, I'm switching to turps...

  5. John
    Coat

    Metric??

    How many Euro is that per litre?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    So ????????

    I long ago decided to remove myself from the system when it came to life's little pleasures. I quite happily brew my own beer (c 20/30p a pint), wine (c 2quid a bottle), and spirits (c 1.50 a litre).

    Up yours gord !

  7. Mr Chris

    Best start panic buying then

    Mine's four pints please, landlord.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Number of Pints and their content

    I was only 4 at the time, but back in '79, didn't we shift mostly 3% ish beers,

    now it's all 5.5 percenters (ok a nod toward "newer" low alc beers)

    So are we shifting the same net amount of booze - i.e. no change?

  9. garry
    Flame

    THE HORROR!!!

    NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! my life is ruined, this means pubs are going to be empty, I also believe that every man woman and england will pay top dollar to find out who those doomongers are, what will life be like in britain now, just imagine the alcoholics that havent seen the light of day properly for 20years *shakes head* actually I'm not goin think about it.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Admittedly serious, but...

    This is shocking news, however it is no excuse for coining the word "doomonger", which simply does not exist*

    Drinking more will increase demand, which may push prices down? I feel it is our duty.

    * - in my lexicon.

  11. Mad as a Bat
    Coat

    That explains...

    ...why their beers all taste like shite:

    "The company has fingered higher aluminium, cereal and crude oil costs as the cause"

  12. Liam Johnson

    News

    Foster's is beer?

  13. Chris
    Happy

    Crude Oil Costs!

    I know its fithy lager that is referred to, not real ale, but since when was crude oil used in brewing?

  14. Niall Campbell
    Pirate

    It's enough to drive you to drink

    This sort of news is most unwelcome. It's like saying work to us members of the drinking classes. I almost choked on my pint.

  15. Nick Cassimatis
    Pirate

    Crude Oil?

    "The company has fingered higher aluminium, cereal and crude oil costs as the cause, the Guardian explains"

    There's crude oil in my beer???

  16. Steven
    Unhappy

    Well that's that then.

    Best look the bottle of turps out the garage and start claiming disability allowance in accordance with new government directives!!

  17. Konstantinos
    Jobs Halo

    And there was "light"...

    but its actually pretty heavy =/

  18. Matt

    comment title required - since when?!!!! :p

    no surprise really... with the cost of petrol at over a quid at even the cheapest stations, we might as well get a butt raping with other essentials, im just waiting for the cost of air to go up..

    why the hell would anyone want to live in this god awful hole!

    please, one express ticket out of here!

  19. Richard Tobin

    Sixty percent ???

    Just how much of your average pint is hops? Sounds like an excuse for increased brewery profits to me.

    (And why can't I post with "60% ???" as the title?)

  20. JP
    Pirate

    What goes into a pint?

    "The company has fingered higher aluminium, cereal and crude oil costs as the cause."

    How much crude oil does my pint contain?!?

  21. Robert Hill
    IT Angle

    IT Angle???

    And the IT angle here would be...ah, yeah, The BOFH of course, who will now be forced to supplement his income in more nefarious ways to pay for his "lunch".

    Looking forward to this new plot twist...

  22. Hugh Cowan
    IT Angle

    <<<< Look at the icon

    As the icon says........where is the IT angle?

  23. This post has been deleted by its author

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Title

    Given that hops are only a single ingredient in some beer, exactly how much have they rose to force a 60% rise in the final product ?!? Sounds like scaremongering (or maybe profiteering) to me.

  25. Dan
    Thumb Up

    We'll have to work fast....

    A pair of quadruple whiskies and another pair of pints........

  26. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    @Danny

    OK smartarse. Where did you get a pint of reasonably-priced beer in the UK? Go on, tell us.

    Still look at it this way. You'll be able to fly cattle-class to Prague, stay the weekend, get thoroughly wankered, fly back and still save money. The best part is that your flight will contribute to Global warming*, pushing up the price of beer in the UK and next time you do it, you'll save *even more money*.

    Yippee!

    The Bomber jacket with the Pilsner Urquell logo please.

    *Unless, of course, it's nothing to do with Global warming at all and it's just making an appearance as the usual trendy cop-out, in which case this won't work. Boooo.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    o well

    looks like it's time to start smoking dope again.

    However I mostly only drink bottles and cans at home with my mates, drinking out is already too expensive. £35 will get enough booze for 3 of you to get happily sloshed all weekend at home.

  28. Andrew Kelly
    Pirate

    Could this see inflation spiral out of control?

    With many a good deal being closed in the pub over a pint or ten and those pints being claimed back as expenses and those expenses claimed back from the client via increased costs, could we be seeing compound inflation (have I coined a new phrase?) on the way?

  29. Andrew Hill

    Real price of hops

    The quantity of hops per pint is very small. To brew 4 gallons at home, one would require around £3 worth of hops. This equates to approximately 10p of hops per pint. Even if the price of hops doubled, it would make little impact to what we spend at the bar, bearing in mind breweries are buying a little more than 100g at a time.

  30. GrahamT
    Boffin

    @John: Re metric

    £4 per pint: That will be about €9.85 per litre, or €3.28 per 33cL glass

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    sigh

    "How much crude oil does my pint contain?!?"

    none, however the heating of the mash probably uses oil in some way or other, delivery trucks all use fuel which is based on crude oil so the delivery costs go up (which has tobe taken into account in the price) etc etc.

    aluminium - cans and the barrels. I assume at some point they make new barrels.

    grain - too much is beimng diverted for biofuels, see the pasts protests in italy the other month over Durum wheat being too expensive.

    to the "where's the it angle" brigade it's in bootnotes so really it should be "where's the paris hilton angle".

  32. Rob

    Thank God for Magners.

    I like my ale as much as the next man, but the good old Magners has been a fave for me lately. Hopefully the Apple Orchards we see in the luverly Irish ads are still ok ?

  33. sue
    Coat

    and you drink this stuff?

    "The company has fingered higher aluminium, cereal and crude oil costs as the cause."

    Glad I don't drink....crude oil and Rice Krispies beer? bad enough, but think of the company bods having fingered your aluminium cans first!

  34. Will
    Alert

    Let's find the UK's most expensive pint from a pub

    I'll open with £4 for a pint of Staropramen at the Duke's Head in Putney.

    I was literally gasting flabber.

    Can anyone trump this? Criteria is a pint of normal bitter or lager (none of that fancy cherry flavoured stuff) and purchased from a pub, not a nightclub.

  35. Rick
    Stop

    On the other side of the pond

    To get a good Irish or English pint over here already cost anywhere from $5.50 to $7.00 so this is not to much of a shock for us...your just catching up to the rest of the world. On the other hand if your over here you can always have domestic US beer...errr....

  36. Craig Peters
    Pirate

    The IT Angle.

    If no-one here sees the IT angle in this, I want to know where they work. Tis a sad day when the price of forgetting a hard days 'work' will get little change from £20.

    To be honest for you, I feel sorry for the curry house.

  37. Lloyd
    Thumb Down

    You've obviously never drunk in Chelsea

    £4.40 for a pint of Peroni in the Waterside.

  38. Gabor Laszlo
    Happy

    @AnonCoward

    Brewing your own starts to look like the way to go. Mind you. I live in Bavaria, where the 1/2l lager is still under 1€.

  39. Tim Spence
    Pirate

    Greener/cheaper options

    I think we need a campaign to promote the production of biobeers - they're cheaper (due to lower taxation) and better for the environment too (the exhaust fumes aren't as toxic, unless you combine it with a curry).

    Can you drink LPG?

  40. Jim McNally
    Dead Vulture

    Try living in Oslo!

    Once again the universe takes it upon itself to dump on me from a great height.

    I've been working in Oslo for the past nine months and finally come to terms with the £5 pint (plus or minus 50p say for local Ringnes chemical pish, gets up to around £7 or more for owt decent, especially down Aker Brygge).

    I'm finally leaving this Friday to return to the UK, and was looking forward to getting change from a fiver for 2 pints. And then this!

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    the pubs already are empty

    thanks to the smoking ban. they will be closing their doors quicker than local post offices soon.

  42. Ash
    Coat

    Shandy? Half pints?

    At least with these you won't find you've mistakenly identified a hot blonde lady with a 38DD chest, who is actually a 6'4" metal-head rocker with a 54" barrel chest.

    Then again, if you're drinking halves or shandies that's probably your thing.

  43. bluesxman
    Go

    Not enough hops? Boo-hoo!

    I'll be sticking with the Hoegaarden, Franziskaner, Schneider Weisse, Ayinger, Paulaner, Erdinger, Schoefferhoffer, Maisells Weisse, Etalon Weissbier and (to a lesser extent) Grolsch Weizen then -- nary a hop in sight, so hopefully no price hike! Hurray for wheat beer!

    Not that the fuckers are particularly cheap to begin with though...

  44. Pheet
    Thumb Down

    I'm glad I live in Germany now...

    Ok bottled beer (half litre, just under a pint) from the off-license: from 60 cents ('bout 40p).

    Mid-range pub in the west (with table service), ca €3 (2 quid).

    The german laws on beer purity means there's no aluminium, cereal or crude oil either ;-)

    Sounds like the typical rip-off britain scenario - pay the highest prices for the lowest quality. I'm think sometimes that the europhobia in the British establishment is due to the fact, that if the majority of people in the UK were to compare their quality of life with their european neighbours, there'd be an instant uprising...

  45. Graham O'Brien
    Happy

    Not all US beer is bad ...

    "On the other hand if your over here you can always have domestic US beer...errr...."

    Sam Adams Oktoberfest? Yum!

  46. Timothy Slade
    Paris Hilton

    @richard tobin

    numbers as comment titles not allowed, for some reason...

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Not so fast

    Sorry bluesxman, Erdinger uses hops (I just checked the label of the bottle I am drinking), and I suspect some of the others if not all of them use hops too...

  48. Karim Bourouba

    @Anonymous Coward

    How does brewing your own save you? Its hops that are going up, and I presume you use these to brew your beer?

    Also, I am fairly sure brewing your own spirits is illegal in the UK.

  49. Simon Greenwood
    Happy

    Hmm, where's el Reg based again

    Oh yeah, right in the West End. I was paying £3.50 for a pint in some pubs in central London six years ago so it's hardly a surprise. 5% lager has gone over £3 in most city pubs in the North now (the range in Leeds is downright bizarre sometimes: something like Carlsberg Export will be £2.60 in one pub and £3.05 in the next. It has something to do with the number of flashing lights I think). We'll keep on paying it though, don't you worry.

  50. Stephen Gazard

    @ Karim Bourouba

    Brewing's permitted. Selling/distilling's not. Means you can only get up to 15% (if lucky) on your own wine.

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