Preston Crawl, Friday 22nd April 2022

[sheffield hatter]

Last pub Hopwood OK but £3 a half, even the 3.5% Beer.

I think you are being a bit generous with your "OK" there, Gill! I thought it was lazy and generic, and a complete rip off. It's bad enough charging £5.50 a pint in Lancashire, but then to charge £3 for a half - well, words fail me. They don't do that in London*, so why do they think it's OK to do that in Lancashire. Is it too late to organise a boycott?


[This should really be in the "How much?" thread.]

* For example, the Parcel Yard at Kings Cross station - yes, it's expensive with London Pride at £5.80 and ESB at £5.90, but at least the halves are also half the price: £2.95 for the ESB last time I was there in March. The worst I've come across before is the Draughtsman on Doncaster station: the half is calculated by halving the price of a pint, rounding up to the next 10p, then adding 10p on top! So a pint at £4.10 would be £2.20 for a half. This is why I go to the Little Plough, five minutes walk from the station, if I'm changing trains in Donny: £2.80 a pint.

[Tris39]

I think you are being a bit generous with your "OK" there, Gill! I thought it was lazy and generic, and a complete rip off. It's bad enough charging £5.50 a pint in Lancashire, but then to charge £3 for a half - well, words fail me. They don't do that in London*, so why do they think it's OK to do that in Lancashire. Is it too late to organise a boycott?


[This should really be in the "How much?" thread.]

* For example, the Parcel Yard at Kings Cross station - yes, it's expensive with London Pride at £5.80 and ESB at £5.90, but at least the halves are also half the price: £2.95 for the ESB last time I was there in March. The worst I've come across before is the Draughtsman on Doncaster station: the half is calculated by halving the price of a pint, rounding up to the next 10p, then adding 10p on top! So a pint at £4.10 would be £2.20 for a half. This is why I go to the Little Plough, five minutes walk from the station, if I'm changing trains in Donny: £2.80 a pint.

I did most pubs in Mayfair last October, all of which are pretty much chains. Ignoring keg offerings, the average price of a half over six pubs was £2.62, the highest being £2.80, the lowest £2.30 in The Burlington Arms. Halves in the Southampton/Cock are £2.21 for a standard beer and any typical London alehouse charges well under a fiver for a standard pint, so £3.00 for a half of 3.5% beer is an absolute rip-off.