The guide, published today (7 September), revealed that for the first time in its 36-year history, the average price of a pint in London (£4.20) has been beaten as the most expensive place by Surrey at £4.40 a pint.
The average price of a pint across the country is now £3.60 - up 13p on 2017’s price of £3.47.
The survey also showed there was a huge £1.09-a-pint difference between the cheapest areas of Herefordshire and Yorkshire (both £3.31) and the most expensive in Surrey.
Another finding of this year’s survey is that in Britain’s ever-growing range of pubs that brew their own, beer typically costs £3.09 a pint which is 51p less than the national average of a pint of beer.
Guide editor Fiona Stapley told The Morning Advertiser said that she was really “amazed” by the results, but admitted that pubs were being “hammered” by a range of costs.
“The chancellor’s decision to increase duty on beer for the first time in five years has been a huge blow to brewers and to pubs and their customers. There are also increases right across the food and drink industry that include higher wage bills as a result of the national living wage increase last year, rocketing business rates (some pubs are seeing rises of more than 200%), higher costs of raw materials, and inflation due to the depreciation of sterling as a result of Brexit,” she said.
“All these factors impose a significant additional burden on licensees and, while they do try to absorb some of these increases themselves, they can’t cover the whole cost. This, therefore, means that some of the cost of these increases are passed on to pub customers. The worry here is that as pubgoers are hit hard in their pockets, trade will suffer and pub closures will continue - at the moment the average rate of pub closures is 21 a week.”
The Good Pub Guide 2018 average beer prices:
Bargain beer
Herefordshire, £3.31; Yorkshire, £3.31; Shropshire, £3.33; Derbyshire, £3.36; Cumbria, £3.38; Worcestershire, £3.38.
Fair-priced beer
Northumberland, £3.40; Wales, £3.42; Leicestershire, £3.47; Northamptonshire, £3.48; Staffordshire, £3.48.
Average-priced beer
Lancashire, £3.50; Dorset, £3.51; Devon, £3.51; Somerset, £3.52; Lincolnshire, £3,55; Cornwall, £3.55; Wiltshire, £3.56; Gloucestershire, £3.60; Suffolk, £3.61; Cambridgeshire, £3.61; Essex, £3.62; Warwickshire, £3.64; Bedfordshire, £3.64; Nottinghamshire, £3.65; Hampshire, £3.66; Norfolk, £3.66; Cheshire, £3.66; Scotland, £3.67.
Expensive beer
Isle of Wight, £3.73; Oxfordshire, £3.74; Buckinghamshire, £3.75; Kent, £3.78; Berkshire, £3.78; Scottish Islands, £3.80; Hertfordshire, £3.81; Sussex, £3.82.
Rip-off beer
London, £4.20; Surrey, £4.40.