Brits have been warned that the price of a pint is set to skyrocket over the next few months.
Yep, if the rising cost of energy bills, petrol and and just about everything else wasn't bleak enough, the trip to the local is set to take a hit too.
I mean, you know it's bad when Wetherspoon is having to put prices up to worrying levels in their most expensive locations.
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But for the average boozer, around 90 percent of the drinks they sell are beer, meaning it's often left propping up businesses, especially now.
And if prices keep on rising as they have been, punters will soon be having to dig deeper into their pockets.
When it comes to pricing their beer, there's a number of factors pubs have got to take into consideration - what it costs the brewery to make, their own overheads such as bills, business rates and staffing costs, and then taxes like VAT and also beer duty, which amounts to around 54p for every five percent of alcohol.
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It all adds up.
Speaking to LADbible about the cost of living crisis, Camilla Weddell from the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) said pubs up and down the country are feeling the pinch.
It's not like a supermarket, which can slash prices at will.
Weddell said: "You do see the difference between a beer you can buy in the supermarket and you can buy the same beer in a pub and it is a lot more.
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"That’s where you start to get all these other costs coming in, things like business rates, like council tax but for businesses, where pubs pay a massively disproportionate amount.
"Nine out of 10 drinks sold in a pub are beer, it's not like a supermarket where they can sell it as a loss leader, it's not what’s actually making their profit."
Explaining that 'pubs are expensive to run and expensive to tax', Weddell warned that there wasn't much individual boozers could do to keep down costs which would inevitably 'be reflected in the price at the bar'.
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While the new beer duty system due to come into effect in August would 'differentiate between place of retail', it would likely only result in 'two or three pence on a pint' being knocked off.
And this, Weddell says, is unlikely to be reflected in the price of a pint, with CAMRA hoping for 'more like 10p or 11p' to be knocked off prices.
She and her colleagues at CAMRA have called on the UK government to use the upcoming spring budget, due to be announced on 15 March, to avoid slashing energy bill support for businesses.
If action isn't taken, a hike in the price of beer, and further pub closures, is inevitable.
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"With energy bills for businesses going through the roof and the cost of goods and employing staff rocketing too, pubs and the breweries that serve them have had no choice but to put up prices in order to make ends meet," said CAMRA National Chairman Nik Antona.
"If the government doesn’t use the spring budget to change its plans to slash help for pubs with energy costs from April, then we risk seeing further price hikes at the bar - or more pub closures."
So how much could we end up paying for a drink if worst comes to worst?
According to the Office for National Statistics, the average retail price of a pint of lager in the UK is currently £4.23, which is 50p more than it was three years ago.
Your average British pint is a quid more expensive that it was 10 years ago, and half of that price increase has occurred in the last three years. Which is pretty steep.
CAMRA warned that if nothing is done to support pubs, Londoners could be handing over £8.67 for a pint this year.
This is all to do with the consumer price index (CPI), which is predicted to be 7.4 percent this year.
And if prices continue to rise at about that rate beyond this year, the average price in the capital could reach an eye-watering £9.31 in 2024, and a criminal £9.99 in 2025.
It's enough to make you need a drink.
Topics: UK News, News, Food And Drink, Money
Joe Harker