The cost of a pint is skyrocketing by almost £1 a year… what the average beer now costs across the country

Going to the pub on a Friday evening for a well-deserved pint is becoming an increasingly expensive endeavor as the cost of beer continues to rise.

According to research from comparison website Finder, the average cost of a pint has risen by 23 per cent to £5.17 in the past year.

This is compared to the average of £4.21 in 2023.

Unsurprisingly, London tops the list for expensive pints, with a beer costing an average of £6.75.

The cost of a pint in London has risen by 14 per cent from £5.90 last year.

Fortunately, this doesn’t come close to the eye-watering average of £9.99 for a pint in Doha, Qatar, where it is only legal to drink in certain licensed locations.

But the average British pint is almost double the world average at just £2.74, making the country the ninth most expensive for a drink.

Outside the capital, a pub visit in Oxford costs £5.69 per drink, while Belfast and Brighton follow closely at £5.48 and £5.47 respectively.

Bristol is the fifth most expensive city at £5.31 per pint.

Of the 46 cities surveyed by Finder, the average price of a pint is £4 or more in 35 of them, including cities such as Derby, Ipswich and Inverness, alongside tourist hotspots such as Cambridge, Exeter and Edinburgh.

Liz Edwards, money expert at Finder, said: ‘Several factors influence the price of beer in Britain, not least the excise duty rate set by the Chancellor, which is likely to remain frozen at least this summer. Other factors are personnel costs, rent, energy and water. We have seen huge increases in the cost of this.

‘But this year another important factor is that Britain has had one of the wettest winters on record and the spring has also been a flop. The fields have become waterlogged: too wet for planting or too wet for tractors to apply fertilizer. If Britain has to import wheat, barley and oats, beer prices could suffer.”

Labor leader Keir Starmer has hinted that he will maintain the beer duty freeze if Labor is elected, saying that ‘it is important that we support hospitality and beer duty is part of the package there’.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have promised that duty on beer in pubs will remain lower than the duty charged in supermarkets.

While the cost of beer continues to rise and high costs continue to push up retail prices, you can still find a relatively cheap pint in some cities in Britain.

Chief among these is Gloucester, where punters can get their hands on a draft beer for an average of just £3.35, less than half the prices in London, and ahead of the next cheapest location, Hull, where a pint costs £3. 61 costs.

In Northampton a pint costs just £3.74, while in Sunderland it costs a penny more at £3.75.

Luton, despite its proximity to London, has the fifth cheapest pint in Britain at £3.77.

Although pints will still remain under £4 at these locations, most prices across the country will have risen in recent years.

In Derby, for example, a pint would have cost £3 in 2023, a figure that has now broken the £4 barrier and risen by a whopping 40 per cent this year to £4.20.

Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, said: ‘Pubs really value their loyal customers and have done their utmost to manage and absorb the pressure that has driven up the price of a pint over the past two years. But unfortunately, the cost of living crisis, rising energy costs and broader inflationary pressures have inevitably led to rising prices.

‘To keep the cost of a pint affordable, pubs and brewers need fair taxation in the form of a reformed business rates system and a further freeze or, better yet, a reduction in excise duty so that everyone can continue to enjoy a refreshing pint their local.’