Today, with the average draught pint now £5.17 and premium lines regularly exceeding £6, the contrast underlines how pub pricing has shifted in a decade of inflationary pressure.
Mintel’s 2016 findings found that £3 a pint was too steep for many drinkers and warned that prices edging past £4 or £5 would face “notable resistance”.
At the time, only 29% of drinkers were prepared to pay more than £4 a pint, and London’s £4.50 upper bracket was seen as exceptional.
Cost escalation
Since then, sustained cost escalation has reset expectations across the trade. Exclusive MA data from 2025 shows the average pint price rose from £5.08 in January to £5.17 by May.
Premium brands such as Camden Hells, BrewDog Punk IPA and Peroni now sit above £6 on average, with some London operators charging more than £7 for certain lines.
Guinness has climbed from £5.37 a year ago to £5.56, with Diageo confirming a further 5.2% rise from April this year.
Higher costs to blame
Brewers continue to push through wholesale increases, including Heineken UK’s 2.7% uplift from February 2026, citing higher employer taxes, energy costs and packaging requirements.
Duty is set to rise again in line with inflation, intensifying margin pressure for operators already absorbing increases to NICs and forthcoming extended producer responsibility fees.
While lager sales were stagnating in 2016, today’s pricing environment is defined less by consumer resistance and more by the limits of operator viability.
The sector’s cost base has risen sharply, and although demand for premium and craft lines remains robust, the era of the sub £3 pint is long gone.
What once represented a price barrier is now less than half the national average, highlighting how sharply the economics of the pint have changed over the past decade.
