Publican explains how much more punters could pay for a pint by spring | UK | News
A pub landlord has revealed how much he expects a pint to go up by in the face of increasing costs nationwide.
Landlords have reportedly considered putting the price of beer up by as much as 40p as the price of a barrel and National Living Wage is set to increase.
One landlord has now spoken to the Daily Star to reveal how much he plans to hike a pint. And while it’s not as much as 40p, it does not appear good news for punters.
Ben Stanford runs the George and Dragon in picturesque Much Wenlock, Shropshire. He says an increase is coming to pumps in the coming weeks.
He said: “We have an increase coming in two weeks, not as much of an increase this year vs last year but draught products will have (on average) 9% increase.”
This he says is likely to be a challenge facing publicans up and down the country. This increase he said, “will equate to 10 to 15p per pint” but was optimistic that the wage increase that was coming would leave punters with a few more quid in their pockets.
The landlord added: “We’ll end up with two price increases in a relatively short period of time. The other concern is the upcoming changes to the national minimum wage in April. We’ll have to spread this across all of the wet product range.
“I anticipate that most of our customer base will benefit themselves from the April changes, hopefully, making it a less painful price increase.”