This week: the rise in the price of a pint is inevitable, but by how much? Also, celebrating Baltic Porter Day and spreading the joy of traditional cask bitter.
The price of a pint will have to increase when brewers’ and publicans’ costs rise in April, and depending on where you drink that could be by 10p, 20p, or even more.
Young’s is set to add 20p to the price of a pint in London, which would take the average drink up to £6.50. Fuller’s prices are set to rise by 10p. It seems the ‘Iron Chancellor’ isn’t for turning, so it’s difficult to see where these price hikes are going to end.
It’s all very well media owners like me urging people to go out and support their pubs, but there comes a point where people’s budgets just won’t stretch any more. You’ve only go to look at the record number of food banks in the country to see that a trip to the pub even for just one pint can’t be on everyone’s leisure time list.
An interesting stat from The Independent. “According to the Office for National Statistics, a pint of draught lager has grown in price from an average of 92p in February 1987 to £4.82 in December of last year. This rise is far faster than regular inflation. If the price of a pint had followed regular CPI inflation since 1987, it would cost £2.61 today.”
Porter call
Today (Saturday) is the eighth annual Baltic Porter Day, Jeff Alworth tells us in his blog, Beervana. And it turns out Poland remains a hotbed of production, with the style very popular there. On his latest post, he tells us, with help from beer style guru Martyn Cornell, how this came to be and how the beer can vary, in taste and ABV. Well worth a few minutes if your time, you’ll find the post here.
The cask view from across the pond
Over on Beer & Brewing Jeff Alworth is talking our great British tradition, cask bitter. He explain show it’s become a relatively marginal player over here. “That doesn’t mean it’s unimportant there, and it still has its ardent fans. Yet a recent report from Britain’s Society of Independent Brewers pegs cask ale at just 9% of the country’s declining draught beer market, and at 4% of British beer consumption overall.
What follows, however, is a fascinating deep dive into cask culture, laced with an optimism for the category. (I always compare it to the vinyl revival.) This takes in conversations with head brewers at Marble, Track, and Cloudwater, and a close examination of the brewing process for an audience more attuned to keg beer. Read the article here.
