British pint 267% more expensive than Europe’s cheapest

Research from Ocean Finance delved into the cost of a pint, a bottle of wine and a cup of coffee in cities across Europe.

Prague in Czech Republic came in at the cheapest for drinking out with the cost of a pint of beer at £1, a bottle of table wine £5 and a cup of coffee £2.

Budapest in Hungary was in second place with the average cost of a pint was £2, a bottle of table wine was £4 and coffee was the same as Prague at £2.

UK cost

Lisbon echoed Budapest with the beer cost and coffee but the wine price was 50% higher at £6.

According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), as of March 2019, the average cost of a pint of lager in the UK is £3.67.​

However, Brits are still unhappy with the cost of a pint of beer. In May 2018, YouGov conducted a survey where it discovered the average price of a pint of beer in Britain was 60p more than Brits thought was reasonable.

The study included more than 40,000 respondents who were asked what they thought was a reasonable price for a pint at the pub and compared the answers to the average price of pints across the country.

Unhappy customers

It found the national average ‘reasonable’ price for a pint, as perceived by Brits, was £3, which was 60p lower than the national average cost of a pint at the time – 67p lower than the average pint of lager cost recorded by the ONS in May 2019.

A similar study commissioned by St Austell Brewery’s Proper Job IPA found four in 10 Brits, who drink beer, were unhappy about the cost of a pint.

The research, which involved 2,000 respondents, also delved into what drinkers think makes a perfect pint and found the brew should have a head of 9mm, served in a ‘proper’ pint glass at 5.30pm on a Saturday, in a beer garden with a partner, the study revealed.

It claimed the ideal pint should be partnered with a packet of crisps, a good catch-up with a partner and with mobile phones out of sight.