Average price of a pint increases by 11p over the last year
The handbook also shows that tenanted pubs charged slightly less than independent pubs - £2.85 against £2.87 - in 2011, the most recent year in which figures are available. Managed pubs charged £2.97. The overall average was £2.86.
The most expensive TV region was London, with pints costing £3.39, followed by Meridian (£3.03), Harwest England (£2.98) and Anglia (£2.97). Cheapest was Granada (£2.48), Tyne Tees (£2.55), Harwest Wales (£2.66), Yorkshire (£2.67), Central (£2.68) and Scotland (£2.85).
On-trade beer is 2.5 times as expensive as in the off-trade.
Meanwhile, the on-trade’s share of beer sales continues to decline, accounting for 51.8% of beer sales in 2011, against 52.7% in the previous year.
Overall consumption of alcohol in the on-trade fell from 2.9 to 2.8 litres per head of the population in 2011. Beer lost more share of sales, accounting for 56.6%, down from 58.2% in the previous year. It lost ground to cider (+0.4 pps to 10.2%) wine (+0.5 pps to 18.3), FABs (+0.2 pps to 1.8%) and spirits (+0.5 pps to 13.1%).
Alcohol sales also fell in the off-trade in 2011, from 5.6 to 5.5 litres per head of population.
The figures also show that annual beer production increased in 2011 for the first time since 2003, with production up from 27.5m to 27.9m barrels. And UK beer exports reached a record high of £566m.
