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The Pub trade is dying - Minimum price for Alcohol?
Comments
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Absolutely not, I pick up a 1cent coin if I see one.
Well if I'm out for the night with 35 quid in my pocket, I'd rather have 5 nice beers at 7 quid, than 7 crappy 5 euro pints, especially if I can get them in the offlicence at 24 cans for the same 35 euro. And I'll have just as good a night as the lad who has 7 pints of 5 euro blandness. And I'm not talking about 7 euro for a pint of 5% beer either.
I agree with you, but the elephant in the room here is that a large proportion of the people that frequent bars in Ireland are not drinking beer for the taste, but for its intoxicating effects.
These people drink bland flavourless beer because they don't want to taste beer, they want to drink it, and bland, flavourless beer can be had a lot cheaper from a supermarket than from a pub, and so these people, many now a bit more pressed for cash than they may have been previously, are choosing to drink at home. So while price mightn't be the major issue for you, I think it might be for the majority.0 -
HellFireClub wrote: »In fairness you don't sound at all representative of most consumers in Ireland who are fairly pressed for disposible cash..
Sorry, have to agree with kenmc, I take quality and choice over quantity.
Most consumers in Ireland are not discussing the finer details of this on boards.ie, they are down in Tescos/Dunnes buying what they want, at a price they can afford.
Myself, I took Mary Harney's only good advice, ''Shop Around'', which is why I buy all my beer and wine in Carrefour, Cherbourg once a year... The money I save is happily spent on nights out in Dublin in establishments that care for their customers (hint, not Pubs).0 -
Why does it cost 5e for a bottle of beer or a pint in a pub??
Im sure they buy for the same price as off licences or tesco, sure the profit margin must be massive, even with the overheads.0 -
HellFireClub wrote: »Yeah but a lot of folks are on a lower budget, if I'm going out mid week now for a pint,
I now normally drink in the Porterhouse - 4.40 a pint and always a 4 euro special. And they are at the bottom of Grafton St so have high rents to pay. The place is jammers at weekends too proving that there are ways to make money in the industry regardless of what vested interests will tell you.
I often hit the Gingerman at lunchtime. A 4 pint pitcher of Franciscan Well brews are 14 quid. Before they changed their menu you could get fish and chips and a pint for less than 9 euro. And they have genuinely friendly bar staff.
Apart from that I do most of my drinking at home. It's not just the cheap cans that are keeping people out of the pub - it's the rip off pints. If tescos are forced to put up their prices I will go to Newry and buy in bulk rather than go back to my local.0 -
i would go out on a sunday to a Pub just off grafton street, its 2.50 a pint all day all night,and the place is packed so it can be done, too much greed i think, they need to compete0
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Course I did. If I see a beer I've never had before, I try it, and I saw Duff so I tried it. One will do, mind.fontanalis wrote: »I bet you never had a Duff in your life!
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Deleted User wrote: »I agree with you, but the elephant in the room here is that a large proportion of the people that frequent bars in Ireland are not drinking beer for the taste, but for its intoxicating effects.
These people drink bland flavourless beer because they don't want to taste beer, they want to drink it, and bland, flavourless beer can be had a lot cheaper from a supermarket than from a pub, and so these people, many now a bit more pressed for cash than they may have been previously, are choosing to drink at home. So while price mightn't be the major issue for you, I think it might be for the majority.
If its drunkeness they're after then they should really go for hard liquor, they're wasting their time with beer lol!:pac:0 -
longhalloween wrote: »Why does it cost 5e for a bottle of beer or a pint in a pub??
Im sure they buy for the same price as off licences or tesco, sure the profit margin must be massive, even with the overheads.
You really didn't read any of the thread, did you?0 -
One of the things that has stopped me going to pubs is that what I used to do was go to the pub with a group of friends, then at last call we used to buy a couple of cans each and head to someone's house, have the one or two (bought from the pub we were in) before ending the night. The ban on off sales after 10pm stopped that entirely, if you have to have beers in before heading out on the chance that you will go back to that particular house and have to have the full range..... is impossible, may as well just get everyone around to the house at the beginning of the night with their own pre-bought drink. That ban has cost local pubs business in my opinion.
Not seen anyone else make this point but it did have this effect on me and people I know (once none of us were interested in meeting randomers :P )0 -
I'm young compared to some on here and I don't know about the good old days when pints were 50 pence or whatever, but anyway:
I go out fairly regularly and the biggest problem with pubs for me is: you haven't a fecking clue what they will charge you.
Price lists seem to have went out the fecking window in pubs now, nevermind nightclubs were they probably were never in. It's a serious problem, am I going to be charged 3.40 for the drink or 5.20.
Even if it's a cosy, calm country pub, don't be surprised if the ****ers charge 5e plus even for bottles. I'm sorry but I want to get more than two drinks out of 10 to 12 euros ffs.
It's sad but I just drink in others houses or at home before going out, have a couple in the pub but not much.
I can get about 50 cans of drinkable stuff for 30 to 40 pound in Enniskillen, and high content bottles of wine, for 4e in local offies. Why waste 5 times the amount.0 -
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I see everyone on this thread bitching about the price of a pint but I can go into the pub with the highest priced pint and it's packed! Others here are saying they would go to a pub if it was cheap or quiet but they're not the ones who keep the pubs going.
Sorry guys, the pubs that charge €5 for a pint seem to be doing just fine... The ones selling cheap pints and imported beer are going under...0 -
fontanalis wrote: »I bet you never had a Duff in your life!
I had a duff beer once. It was called Budweiser.0 -
I now normally drink in the Porterhouse - 4.40 a pint and always a 4 euro special. And they are at the bottom of Grafton St so have high rents to pay. The place is jammers at weekends too proving that there are ways to make money in the industry regardless of what vested interests will tell you.
I often hit the Gingerman at lunchtime. A 4 pint pitcher of Franciscan Well brews are 14 quid. Before they changed their menu you could get fish and chips and a pint for less than 9 euro. And they have genuinely friendly bar staff.
Apart from that I do most of my drinking at home. It's not just the cheap cans that are keeping people out of the pub - it's the rip off pints. If tescos are forced to put up their prices I will go to Newry and buy in bulk rather than go back to my local.
Agreed.
I haven't read the whole thread but surely if prices are increased once again, then the diverge of drinkers will just buy all across the border, once again.
It's sad that several pubs are closing but just maybe there was too many in the first place.
In times like this pubs were always going to close, what with the challenge of the border/supermarkets.0 -
I see everyone on this thread bitching about the price of a pint but I can go into the pub with the highest priced pint and it's packed! Others here are saying they would go to a pub if it was cheap or quiet but they're not the ones who keep the pubs going.
Sorry guys, the pubs that charge €5 for a pint seem to be doing just fine... The ones selling cheap pints and imported beer are going under...
There are always idiots who will throw money around or just the rich in general who will be overcharged.
I'm sorry but if your going to your local pub and paying a fiver a pint, several nights a week, then you are a fool and being played like a mug. And clearly these pubs aren't doing well, otherwise they wouldn't be so many closures. It's a mix of high and low chargers going under. Low price pubs can attract a certain type of scummer, which can turn pubs into dumps quite quickly, and all the while the rent can be quite high.0 -
Sorry, have to agree with kenmc, I take quality and choice over quantity.
Most consumers in Ireland are not discussing the finer details of this on boards.ie, they are down in Tescos/Dunnes buying what they want, at a price they can afford.
Myself, I took Mary Harney's only good advice, ''Shop Around'', which is why I buy all my beer and wine in Carrefour, Cherbourg once a year... The money I save is happily spent on nights out in Dublin in establishments that care for their customers (hint, not Pubs).
That's my point. Back in the boom, value wasn't something that people gave much conern to. The "normal rules" of how a consumer operates over the period of their lifetime, I think were completely suspended.
Now that we are back to reality, the old rules of consumerism are back in place and thanks be to Christ, value now matters, service now matters, common business decency towards a customer now matters.
One thing I've noticed is that regular drinkers tend to be very much creatures of habit, they drink a brand and usually stick to it for years because, "it agrees with them". It took me a few years as a young lad to work out what drink agreed with me and which ones resulted in me throwing up or dying for a week. You've Guinness drinkers, Heineken drinkers, Carlsberg drinkers, Bulmers drinkers and Budweiser drinkers, etc. Outside of that handful of options, I don't see much out there with regard to choice, and they are all priced identically with the exception of the cheaper Guinness option or the more expensive Bulmers option.
So I find a drink that agrees with me and I've been drinking the same drink for many years now, and my mates are all the same. They wouldn't drink what I drink and I wouldn't drink what they drink.
The only other thing I need to concern myself with after making that decision, is how much I'm going to spend when I'm out. If it's the weekend and the finances are looking all right, I'd be inclined to spend a bit more, but I won't spend any more than 20 quid on a midweek pint and a yap with mates. There are weeks that I wouldn't have it to spend in the middle of the week, and definitely wouldn't have a larger amount to spend at the weekend. There are a lot of other folks in the same situation as me and that's why I think the publicans are losing a lot of business at least on the pricing front, it just isn't affordable anymore to drink in a pub with the prices they are looking for...
There is a rapidly shrinking pool of people with the disposable income that is necessary to sit in a pub and drink with any kind of frequency and the publicans are choosing to target these people only for business. If that is a business decision that you want to make, then once you have committed yourself to it, then you have to be prepared to take the consequences if they turn out to be not in your favour I think...0 -
To the people that complain about prices, would you go and buy a steak in Tesco and proudly proclaim "I can get a steak for <5 euro while the restauraunt charges me 25+, the bastards?" I am not saying people should pay prices in pubs if they don't feel like it, it's a free market after all, shop around. Just pisses me off rightly when people compare the economies of a typical supermarket to a local family run pub. Chances are, cheap food and beer in the supermarkets is increasing reliance on outside companies. Just because you can get the beer at rock bottom prices in tesco/aldi or whatever does not mean the pub should charge 1.00 euro a bottle.
If you are intent on getting pissed as cheaply as possible, maybe the pub atmosphere is lost on you? Not defending overpriced pub prices, but there are overheads associated with a local pub that CANNOT be compared to the prices you find in a supermarket. You are comparing apples to oranges here. A pub is not a supermarket, just like a restauraunt is not a supermarket. Call me traditionalist or whatever, but I would much prefer to spend my hard earned money on locally run irish companies, instead of places like tesco. Big companies like tesco are trying their best to destroy irish culture by closing corner shops, monopolising their postion, and above all, trying to get their finger into every pie that they can get their hands on. It's not good that tesco will be the next Walmart. Is this what most Irish people want?
Essentially, most people are being lured into the promise of cheap beer, at the expensive of locallly run shops. If you want cheap beer at any cost and don't care about globalisation, go nuts on the tesco stuff. Would I be correct in saying that the majority of people who really berate the pubs, have never managed one themselves? Once again, if you like the situation of the mcdonalds like pubs in England, go ahead and buy the cheap beer. Just don't complain about lack of irish run companies should such a situation come to fruition.0 -
There are always idiots who will throw money around or just the rich in general who will be overcharged.
I'm sorry but if your going to your local pub and paying a fiver a pint, several nights a week, then you are a fool and being played like a mug. And clearly these pubs aren't doing well, otherwise they wouldn't be so many closures. It's a mix of high and low chargers going under. Low price pubs can attract a certain type of scummer, which can turn pubs into dumps quite quickly, and all the while the rent can be quite high.
I go for the odd pint into many different places, in my experience the places with the highest price of a pint are the busiest. I'm not biased in anyway btw, im not a publican or anything. I just know that for some reason, people seem to love going to places with blaring crap music and overpriced watered down drink.0 -
I have to agree with the choice argument. .... Also, a few blonde beers maybe? Hoegarden or Leffe?
EDIT: You can see by the names that I am not exactly asking for anything too uncommon.
Hoegaarden and Leffe are not exotic at all, they are now brewed by AB InBev, who also make Becks, Stella, Bud, etc...
I do like the former, but can't understand why they are not generally available. (Shout out to the Dice Bar)0 -
They find life after a stunt like that very difficult.
I may be oversimplifying it a little here, but this makes it sound like Diageo specifically are over-charging the entire pub trade. They will sell to the supermarkets at one price and make the publicans pay a much higher price.
And then you say that if the publicans exercise their right to purchase elsewhere within Europe things will be made "difficult" for them by their suppliers (which in my understanding == Diageo for most high volume drinks).
And there's nothing their representative bodies can do to bring pressure to bear on the suppliers ?
And there's nothing Europe has to say about this behaviour which effectively locks publicans into a single supplier at the suppliers nominated price ?
In my view, effectively what happened (without the publicans copping on until it was too late) was that the suppliers saw their volume move from the pubs (traditionally the biggest market I would have thought) to the supermarkets over time as people got tired of the prices, the hassle, the aggro, etc . . . and voted to stay at home. The suppliers and supermarkets then saw that it was worth their time lowering prices in that market while there was no incentive to lower it to the publicans.
Then one day the publicans woke up and said "Bedad, it's fierce quiet in here these days. Where did all them customers go to ? Don't they realise that pubs are where it's all happening ? Well, where it used to be happening." At that stage the ship had sailed, Elvis has left the building and taken all the customers with him. They've gone home, thought about it and realised that they didn't enjoy the pub experience any more. The time for publicans to act was when the shift started taking place towards more drinking at home and not after the general populace had woken up and changed their mind. The only acting that the publicans did was to oppose changes to the licensing laws, the cafe-bars, etc . . . and look where that got them.
On one positive note - I dropped into that hotel on Abbey Street, just around the corner from O'Connell Street just before Christmas. It brought me back 20 years. No telly, two barmen who chatted away, who had character, who interacted, who cared for their customers, etc . . . absolutely priceless to me. They had a lot of partically sighted and blind customers and they did everything the customers needed.
OK, a second positive note - also dropped into the Stags Head a few weeks before Christmas for a trip down memory lane. I also wanted to get some food and didn't fancy having to queue at any of the packed restaurants around town. Same again, friendly staff, quiet corners, no telly, good food, return customer. There were also two sets of tourists there - I don't know whether their book said "another one of Dublins oldest pubs, worth a look" or "actually a really nice pub, with nice food and ambience" or what it said, but you could see they were enjoying the place.
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To the people that complain about prices, would you go and buy a steak in Tesco and largely proclaim "I can a steak for < 5 euro while the restauraunt charges me 25+, the bastards?" I am not saying people should pay prices in pubs if they don't feel like it, it's a free market after all, shop around. Just pisses me off rightly when people compare the economies of a typical supermarket to a local family run pub. Chances are, cheap food and beer in the supermarkets is increasing reliance on outside companies. Just because you can get the beer at rock bottom prices in tesco/aldi or whatever.
If you are intent on getting pissed as cheaply as possible, maybe the pub atmosphere is lost on you? Not defending overpriced pub prices, but there are overheads associated with a local pub that CANNOT be compared to the prices you find in a supermarket. You are comparing apples to oranges here. A pub is not a supermarket, just like a restauraunt is not a supermarket.
Are you seriously trying to argue here that your local boozer has a higher rates, rent and labour bill than your local Tesco?!? Furthermore, you should go into Tesco and come back here when you can get a decent sized portion of good quality fillet steak for 5 Euro. It will cost you at least 10 Euro, a lot more if it is aged tendered, I don't begrudge the restaurant for marking it up maybe 100% for cooking and preparing it for me, along with the other culinary items that are on my plate when it arrives at my table.
The publicans are buying bottles of Millar for 75 cent at retail prices and marking that up to over 5 Euro, no cooking involved or any other ingredients, just stick it in a fridge and take a lid/cap off it and maybe a glass with ice if I'm fussy. Also, there is at least half an hour of skilled labour involved in cooking the fillet steak, yet the mark up's are a lot more modest than the mark up's on booze generated by the publican.
Maybe you need to go back and figure out what an apple and an orange looks like again to be honest with ya... :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:0 -
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I think also the atmosphere has changed in pubs making it a different expericence compared to a few years ago.
We were in temple bar pub over the xmas, was 5.50 for a pint. Pint was ok and there was a good crowd there. Now myself, I couldn't sit there knocking back pints the way I normally would paying 5.50 ,it takes away from the enjoyment.
My point about the atmosphere is there are now more variety of races, and many of the europeans dont drink the way the irish do. Just doesn't feel the same as when most people used to get tanked up, now you can feel like the odd one out.
IMHO pint should be 3.5 - 4.50 max end of.0 -
Micky Dolenz wrote: »It's the price that is killing them. I have been out over the holidays and have paid €5.20 and €4.40 for a bottle of Heineken in Dublin, €4 in Limerick.
Madness considering I can buy 20 bottles for as little as €15 and go to a house party etc.
You are comparing oranges to apples here. The prices reflected in pub prices does not account just for the beer in the glass. If you want to drive power from locally run companies to places like Tesco, go ahead. You are doing the country a disservice. The pub situation is akin to corner shops. How could a corner shop ever compete with the likes of Walmart/Tesco? They can't. Different economies of scale. You can't compare a family run shop or pub to Monoliths like Tesco. If you dislike globalisation practices, maybe you should reconsider giving your money exclusively to large multi-nationals. Self autonomy is a good thing.0 -
Would I be correct in saying that the majority of people who really berate the pubs, have never managed one themselves?
You don't need to run a pub to know that the price of a pint is overpriced.
That's like saying that you don't know that you can't really know if Barcelona are a good football team if you've never managed a club.0 -
I was in a pub for the first time in months on new years and I don't see the point in them any more. The choice of drink is limited and I'm beginning to think the quality of the drink is terrible, the music is just awful in 99% of pubs I've been in then it's so loud you can hear distortion in the speakers.
Pubs are only appealing to teens and young 20 something's that don't know any better.
They've had their day and now the fad is over, bye bye.There is tax on them and you got 2 minerals :rolleyes:
Why does the same quantity of mineral cost more than a pint?
It makes no sense.HellFireClub wrote: »The publicans are buying bottles of Millar for 75 cent at retail prices and marking that up to over 5 Euro, no cooking involved or any other ingredients, just stick it in a fridge and take a lid/cap off it and maybe a glass with ice if I'm fussy.
I am not sure we can just say every public does this.0 -
To the people that complain about prices, would you go and buy a steak in Tesco and largely proclaim "I can a steak for < 5 euro while the restauraunt charges me 25+, the bastards?" I am not saying people should pay prices in pubs if they don't feel like it, it's a free market after all, shop around. Just pisses me off rightly when people compare the economies of a typical supermarket to a local family run pub. Chances are, cheap food and beer in the supermarkets is increasing reliance on outside companies. Just because you can get the beer at rock bottom prices in tesco/aldi or whatever does not mean the pub should charge 1.00 euro a bottle.
If you are intent on getting pissed as cheaply as possible, maybe the pub atmosphere is lost on you? Not defending overpriced pub prices, but there are overheads associated with a local pub that CANNOT be compared to the prices you find in a supermarket. You are comparing apples to oranges here. A pub is not a supermarket, just like a restauraunt is not a supermarket. Call me traditionalist or whatever, but I would much prefer to spend my hard earned money on locally run irish companies, instead of places like tesco. Big companies like tesco are trying their best to destroy irish culture by closing corner shops, monopolising their postion, and above all, trying to get their finger into every pie that they can get their hands on. It's not good that tesco will be the next walmart. Is this what most Irish people want?
Tesco; 20 bottles of 330ml budweiser is 20 euro. Thats 1 euro per bottle.
Local pub; 1 bottle of bud - 4.50. (i don't drink bottles of bud but i know people who do)
Its difficult as a consumer to not compare the prices. It makes things all the clearer. In a nutshell; pubs are ripping us off. Whatever way you cut it.0 -
blueyedson wrote: »I think also the atmosphere has changed in pubs making it a different expericence compared to a few years ago.
The attitude a few years ago was that if you were standing at the door or a pub trying to get in, and you were told by some ignorant gimp bouncer to p*ss off because you were in your mid twenties and that you had to be a year older to get in as per "house rules", or you were not perceived to be a "regular", well the attitude of the publican was, "sure f*ck ye, won't there be another hundred gullies like yourself standing behind you at that door in the course of tonight and we can be nice and smug about ourselves and we can tell half of those folks to f*ck off as well!"...
People tend of have long memories about this kind of treatment, the same fu*king rampant price gouging and greed was going on in the housing market, "give us 500K for it and if you don't like the price you can f*ck off with yourself, there is another hundred people behind you, get out of the way"...
There are a cohort of professions that Irish people now blame for the rampant greed that has left this country in absolute bits and the publicans are pretty close to the top of the list in my opinion, so they get lobbed in with the developers and the bankers and rightly so in my opinion in relation to the extension of badwill to these professions, people deciding to not give them a penny, or support them in relation to their trades, etc. It's the exact same thing that is fuelling the housing collapse, pure unbridled anger at those that are perceived to have ruined this country.0 -
You are comparing oranges to apples here. The prices reflected in pub prices does not account just for the beer in the glass. If you want to drive power from locally run companies to places like Tesco, go ahead. You are doing the country a disservice. The pub situation is akin to corner shops. How could a corner shop ever compete with the likes of Walmart/Tesco? They can't. Different economies of scale. You can't compare a family run shop or pub to Monoliths like Tesco. If you dislike globalisation practices, maybe you should reconsider giving your money exclusively to large multi-nationals. Self autonomy is a good thing.
Oh dear.
The prices are excessive - get over it.
You can point out the obvious economies of scale but it doesn't explain the disparity in full.0 -
Has anybody been given free minerals for the designated driver campaigns where the non drinker got free minerals?
I asked one publican and he claimed he never heard of it-"That'll be €2.70 for a small coke please".0 -
You are comparing oranges to apples here. The prices reflected in pub prices does not account just for the beer in the glass. If you want to drive power from locally run companies to places like Tesco, go ahead. You are doing the country a disservice. The pub situation is akin to corner shops. How could a corner shop ever compete with the likes of Walmart/Tesco? They can't. Different economies of scale. You can't compare a family run shop or pub to Monoliths like Tesco. If you dislike globalisation practices, maybe you should reconsider giving your money exclusively to large multi-nationals. Self autonomy is a good thing.
I normally buy my beer from Super value or Dunnes, just because they are local. But luckily for me, they are both Irish owned.
And if you think for a second I will spend my money on an overpriced product out of some sense of loyalty, you must be joking.0 -
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I handed a barman €5 for a pint of Heineken and a pint of tap water in a run of the mill pub in South County Dublin on a quiet Sunday afternoon. When no change was forthcoming I asked him why and he said that the pint of tap water (which was lukewarm and had no slice of lemon or ice in it!) cost me 50c :rolleyes:
Pubs can drown in their own shíte for all I care.0
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