According to the data, released earlier this week, the average cost of a pint of draught lager in pubs increased from £4.62 in September 2023 to £4.79, a 3.6% uptick. Draught bitter prices rose by 2.1% during this period, from £3.84 to £3.92.
However, average pint prices saw a 0.2% downturn month-on-month, from £4.80 in August according to the numbers, based on data collated by ONS from pubs across the country.
In addition, umbers were flat overall during the third quarter of this year compared with a 0.8% increase in Q3 2023. It followed a 0.4% upswing in Q2 this year and a rise of 0.5% in Q1.
Similarly, bitter costs were unchanged at £3.92 during Q3 2024 against a 0.5% rise last year.
Excessively high
This comes as the latest ONS data showed the headline rate of inflation had risen by 1.7% in the 12 months to September 2024, down from 2.2% in August.
However, as September’s inflation figures are used to calculate the annual uplift to business rates, a rate of 1.7% meant a £48m increase in bills for hospitality businesses next year, trade body UKHospitality (UKH) estimated.
In light of the figures, CAMRA national chairman Ash Corbett-Collins warned rising costs have become “commonplace”.
He told The Morning Advertiser (MA): “The latest ONS data reiterates the rising price of a pint is now commonplace, jeopardising the future of pub going.
“Pubs are raising prices to simply survive, as the current environment threatens to break the hospitality trade completely.
Financial burdens
“The pub industry is battling against excessively high energy bills, the rise in the cost of goods, and an unfair business rates system.”
Corbett-Collins added the data “clearly emphasised” the measures the Chancellor “must take” in the upcoming autumn Budget.
He continued: “Extending the draught duty discount rate to ensure pub consumers are not lost to stay-at-home drinking with supermarket alcohol and the reform of the business rates system in England, as promised by the Labour Government’s manifesto, is needed to relieve the financial burdens on pubs.
“With many pubs, social clubs and taprooms already shuttered, or on the brink of doing so, action must be taken during the Budget to prevent more communities from losing their locals.”
Earlier this month, the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) also warned “pubs will close and it will be the end of the affordable pint” without targeted support in the Budget later this month.
