In which I am reminded to channel Mark Eris

[hirez]

This reminded me of living in London and a set of rude (to any sensible chap familiar with the ways of the public house) behaviours that I became unfortunately used to.

In short, London g*ths were a shower of bastards who never seemed to understand the concept of 'getting a round in'. I'm sure some of them thought it was dreadful working-person's football behaviour and was beneath them. It sure as hell never stopped them drinking the beer they were bought, the grasping little shits.

Thankfully I can't name names (Why should I let people like that stay in my head?) and as far as I can tell, none of the buggers made it to LJ.

However, it's nice to be reminded of something so one can get it off one's chest and move on.

Comments

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

And on behalf of teetotallers everywhere, can I just state that:

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Yes Andrew. Perhaps the profiteering scum at the breweries can start to charge less for softies than they do for alco-craps and beer so the standard measure of same becomes a pint, then one won't have to explain to some surly foreign twat of a barperson that Al Murray is a parody and that you wanted a pint of diet coke.

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

This is a very common and entirely wrong misconception. I have yet to find a pub at which cola costs more per pint than lager.

A pint of cola will typically cost £1.60-£2.50, well within or under the typical price of lager. Even in London.

[markeris.livejournal.com]

Having researched this extensively over the last 2 months I must disagree with the even in London section of your post.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Try looking in Yorkshire. The price of soft drinks is bloody ruinous. 3:60 a pint for coca-cola.

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Draught cola or bottled?

[steer.livejournal.com]

Draught -- the stuff mixed from strange gloopy syrup which must cost them all of 20 a shot. How they get away with it I don't know.

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

I have been drinking draught cola in pubs for my entire adult pub-going life, and I have never encountered this. I find your price- for draught- very difficult to believe. Your pub must be either very expensive for everything, or some very rare statistical anomaly.

Sometimes bar staff mistakenly price draught soft drinks at bottled prices- maybe this is happening?

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

More likely its that soft drinks are (often) given in 16floz measures, and asking for a pint causes bar staff to put the price of that in twice. Hogshead pubs were buggers for doing that, although I've not been in one for some time.

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

I used to be v impressed by bar staff remembering the prices of everything 'til I worked a shift at ULU and discovered they wrote it on the back of the pumps. I've never trusted them since!

[steer.livejournal.com]

http://www.dti.gov.uk/ccp/topics1/pricesurvey.htm#Anchor-Drinks-43054

Here's a DTI price survey -- note particularly that the price per unit volume for on-sales is only a few pence different between cola and beer -- lager comes in a little more but you're still talking more. Fruit juice comes out more expensive than lager per unit.

Note also the way the "northern england" price distributions have a much larger variance in soft drink prices and the norther soft drinks are much higher priced by comparison with beer.

Admittedly the survey is five years out of date -- they seem to be comparing "cheapest" beer with "cheapest" cola so you might get some mileage out of arguing something along the lines of "draught" versus "bottle" but it's no good for the person going to the bar who can't very well magic up cheap coke.

The DTI conclusion seems to be there ain't much to choose in price between a pint of coke and a pint of beer. This is certainly my belief from personal experience.

[red-mel.livejournal.com]

Heh I am a barmaid and I can tell you how much it costs the pub to make a pint of coke. About 21p especially as one can tamper with the syrup line to make it stretch futher.

Coffee is even better that only costs 11p and we charge £1.30.

[aeia.livejournal.com]

But soft drinks cost as much if not more than beer!

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

No they effing well don't. This is simply untrue.

[sarah-mum.livejournal.com]

Apart from the fact that I've yet to see any pub offer an kind of deal on soft drinks in the same way they do on bottles or shots, they do indeed overcharge for soft drinks.
I was recently told in a Cheltenham bar, that a pint of Coke (as requested without half a pint of ice) would have to be charged as 2 drinks, thus making it cost 3 quid! I suggested they could keep it.


However, that's not the point. If it's available on draft, the simple question of "pint of" would seem polite for whatever beverage. Spirit+mixer generally costs more than a straight pint of beer, but keeping score of equivalent value would seem a bit picky.

[girfan.livejournal.com]

What they said.

When last in London a pint of Henry cost me almost 3 pounds...it would have been cheaper by far to buy a pint of beer, ale or even a glass of wine (which I didn't want).

At the Carling place in Birmingham (PWEI gig) it was £2.20 for a small bottle of still water.

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Buying bottled products such as alcopops or orange juice or foriegn beers costs more per volume than draught. NO SURPRISE.

Your point illustrates the price difference between bottled and draught drinks of all types, it does not illustrate the price difference between alcoholic and soft drinks.

Buy draught soft drinks. I can assure you, with a lifetime's experience, that draught soft drinks per volume cost the same as, or less than, draught alcoholic drinks.

[red-mel.livejournal.com]

Eye up he's on a rant, Stand back everyone!!

[hsb.livejournal.com]

Yet in a supermarket, they have a very different price. The margin is enormous, yet someone pointed out elsewhere on my friends list that there is a DTI comparison chart that shows that there is very little price difference between draught softies and draught alcohol. But then the alcohol is discounted by the pub, but softies are not. A pint of Coke is likely to cost 3 quid, vs 2 quid for a pint of beer as long as you are buying the one with the special offer on (London prices).

I suspect that the buying a half thing is because when you order a Carlsberg, you get a pint by default. You order a Coke, you get a half by default. Most people go with the default size.

H

[specialunclet.livejournal.com]

then start drinking yer miserable bastard!

[hirez.livejournal.com]

:D

That would solve a lot of problems.

A sensible round:

"Two Guinnesses, pint o' Star, an IPA and two 6Xes, cheers."

An annoying round:

"A 6X, diet coke. No, a pint. Ice? Dunno, I'll ask... Yes. Two Breezers... A green one and a red one? No green? Hold on.. Ok, a green Breezer and one of those things that looks like radioactive antifreeze."