Posting on social media, Steve Corbett, who manages a golf course in Essex, asked “do you charge less for a lager or bitter shandy or do you still sell at the full rate?”.
The questions sparked furious debate and divided members of a pub forum with those advocating for charging the same as the price of a pint, while others charging for a half of beer and half of lemonade.
Steve posed the question as he said he’d been getting “grief” from some of his bar customers.
In reply, one operator, Milton Fenton, said: “Half a bitter plus half a lemonade, it works out about £4 for a pint instead of £5.”
Individual prices
However others said they were charging the same price as a full pint of beer and were receiving no challenges.
Michael Ron said: “£5 for a Fosters, £5 for a Fosters shandy.”
Another contributor, David Sansom, added: “Lots of people here saying ‘the same price’ You probably should have a look at the variance.
“If you have a premium lager on at £7 a pint, they are definitely going to wonder why you are charging them £3.50 for half a pint of lemonade. I’d be inclined to disagree with nearly everyone here and say you should work out individual prices!
“If you have a crap lager on at £3.00 a pint, charge that price. If you have premium stuff on, work out half a lemonade and half a pint price and add them together.. add a little bit extra if you want.
Ripped off
“If you charge £5 a pint for lemonade then you have more of a leg to stand on if people question you, it depends what your brands and pricing are. If you are knocking out kids lemonades at £0.50p but charging £7 full price for a premium draught shandy people will feel massively ripped off!”
London-based operator and Lock In podcast host, Heath Ball said it was probably more nuanced: “In theory you really should charge separately, if you were going to be honest but mostly we’ll charge full price.
“What I do, is if I like the customer, I charge them for the lemonade as a mixer and a half pint of beer.”
