How much is too much?

In these financially troubled times, pricing has become more of an issue for consumers than ever before. This covers the entire retail and entertainment sectors, as people become more reticent to spend large amounts of money on things that they can probably do without. This is undoubtedly one reason why the pub industry is suffering, and why organisations such as CAMRA are eager to keep the issue of pub closures in the public agenda wherever possible.

But are we coming to a time when people are being priced out of the market? How much would you pay for a pint of real ale? This question came to mind the other day when we were conducting some hard-earned ‘research’ in one of the locations highlighted in our BeerCast Edinburgh Pub Guide. Since we were in there last, the price of a pint had been raised to £3.50. To some of you, this may not exactly be news – but the steady (and stealthy) increase in the price of a pint is ongoing, and it may be changing the way people drink real ale.

Traditionally the drink of the working public, British beer can now be compared (price wise at least) to a pint of imported lager in a trendy bar. Of course, there are a range of factors to this – most notably the duty on alcohol in this country – but also British brewers have been hit hard by the increased cost of bottling and transportation, recent hop shortages, and the overall economic downturn. As this has a knock-on effect to the pubgoer, will real ale become a luxury to be enjoyed once in a while, rather than something that’s cheap and comforting?

To a huge extent, that depends on where you go – Wetherspoon’s pubs may be bland and atmosphere-less, but they sell decent beer at tremendously cheap prices. Even without the much-publicised 99p pints, our local branch serves numerous real ales at £1.95. I also recently visited the Cramond Inn, which given it’s location is rather strangely tied to Yorkshire brewer Samuel Smith’s – and enjoyed a great pint of their Brewery Bitter for a tremendously reasonable £1.77.

The moral here seems to be that you need to shop around. Bargains are harder to find these days, but they are to be had. The popularity of supermarket offers for crates of generic lager are worrying for the real ale fan, but for those of us that balk at paying £3.50 plus for a pint, there are other options. Nobody need resort to a twelve-pack of Fosters. The pricing situation might be difficult, but it’s not desperate.