Alcohol price war looms!

Cactus Col

according to the indo ... A bar in Letterkenny has dropped the price of a pint down to €3 ... that's €3 ... trying to get customers back in.

€2.50 for spirits!

soft drinks are down too!

A bit of luck and a price war will happen.

Flukey

Sounds good. It may also be a sign that they are copping on to the fact that the reduce in trade has a lot more to do with prices than with the smoking ban, which has been a very useful scapegoat for the pubs to use to explain their drop in trade.

ArphaRima

Mind you the smoking ban has been a nice excuse for the price-conscious smoking consumer to not go at the same time.

I doubt any price war will go national. We need something like a franchise to come in to do that. (like weatherspoons (sp?) in the UK)

egan007

weatherspons is like drinking in a kitchen

garthv

Well theres the Karma Bar in christchurch thats €3 for a pint of the black stuff and €3.50 for lager. Nice pub too

Flukey

We already have pubs owned by groups, but not franchised. Pubs in Britain are not franchised as such, they are owned by breweries. This means that they sell different drinks in different pubs. In Ireland no matter what pub you go into, you'll get Guinness, Smithwicks, Heineken, Carlsberg etc. In Britain you could go into a pub and have a lovely pint and the following night you could be in a different pub and they don't sell that drink at all, because they are owned by a different brewery. Most of the beer in England is worse than here too. So I certainly hope things never go the way they are over there.

The pubs outside Dublin are represented by the Vintners Federation of Ireland and the pubs in Dublin by the Licensed Vintners Association. The chances of a price war going nationwide is reduced by this fact, not that either association would give the go ahead their members to do so anyway. A few pubs in the area where that pub is might star a price war, but that will be the extent of it.

meepmeep

Wetherspoons is great!

When I was in Scotland i went there all the time. £1 for a pint (miller, carlsberg etc), £1.50 for guinness, £1.50 for spirit and mixer. And £6 for a pitcher of any cocktail (8 glasses). Sweet

The only downside is that they don't play music, but it was pretty much packed out all the time anyway so there was plenty of atmosphere.

I thought I heard somewhere about a year that wetherspoons were planning to open a huge pub in dublin? Never heard anything about it since mind....

Imposter

Flukey wrote:

This means that they sell different drinks in different pubs. In Ireland no matter what pub you go into, you'll get Guinness, Smithwicks, Heineken, Carlsberg etc. In Britain you could go into a pub and have a lovely pint and the following night you could be in a different pub and they don't sell that drink at all, because they are owned by a different brewery.

I think this is great. Over here in Austria most pubs are small and most usually only have 1 beer on draught. There are probably about 10 main beers sold in the bars and they have to be a good quality, otherwise the bars won't sell them, as they won't get any trade.

One of my favourite bars in dublin was the porterhouse for this very reason too. Shame it was so expensive though.

ferdi

"'ave itsss!"

Optikus

Sounds great to me. i wish we had a brewry owed pub like J.D.Wetherspoons or Yeats in athlone great crack, i love the pubs in the UK same about not having the music, but easier to pull.

valor

which pub?

capistrano

I agree that Wetherspoons is great! And they do decent food at a reasonable price - Thursday was curry night in London and you could get a curry, popadoms and a pint for £4.50!

I also heard that they were planning to open in Dublin about a year ago. Not a peep since though!

Although, if they have their cheap prices in Dublin you probsably won't be able to get near the place for all the alcoholics, students (no offence) and other bowzies!

tribble

Jeez, you guys mustn't get out much...
Most pub in Dublin city have had €3 pints for the last couple of months...

Diageo jacked their prices, pubs didn't like it so they called in other suppliers.
That coupled with fewer customers in pubs after the smoking ban has lead to
most places doing €3 Fosters, Bavaria or whatever

gazzer

Ive seen a good few bars selling 3 euro pints of Fosters... even that pub across the road from Isoldes tower (cant think of the name of it) is doing the 3 euro drink and they are usually a very expensive pub.

As for Weatherspoons as far as i know they were to open in Capel st but apparantly there was a log of hassle with planning permission with the council and they were hitting red tape at every turn so in the end they decided not to open up.

capistrano

I get out quite a lot and the pint of stout if usually 3.60 or 3.70 in orginary places. Although, I did hear that it was 2.95 in the Irish House on Harolds Cross bridge.

sliabh

Didn't a publican in Waterford that owns a few places cut his prices drastically a few weeks ago?

Anyone know how he got on?

anthonymcg

GaRtH_V wrote:

Well theres the Karma Bar in christchurch thats €3 for a pint of the black stuff and €3.50 for lager. Nice pub too

And thats why its right at the back of my work.

Flukey

I've been in Weatherspoons in Glasgow, but I'd still prefer our pubs. The atmosphere is not the same in Britain. Imposter, the pubs here have varieties of drinks, but they all sell the main ones, which is the difference. You can be guaranteed going into any pub here that you will get Guinness if you are a Guinness drinker or any of the main drinks. You will get the more unusual beers too, though some pubs have a wider variety than others. The brewery system is bad, because it means there is a lot of very standardised pubs and you don't get the variety of character that you do here. Every pub is different here but a lot of them look the same in Britain. They are not as lively in Britain as here. In some the biggest excitement in the place might be the two old men in the corner playing dominoes. They generally close earlier in Britain too. People are starting to go home there around the same time as many of us are heading into the pubs. Our prices are our main downside, but all in all the pubs are a lot better here. Most British visitors would agree with that too, from my experience.