Beer prices rocket in capital

A PUB in Heathrow Airport is charging a whopping £8.30 for just one pint of beer as prices for the drink shoot up in London.

Big Smoke Taphouse and Kitchen was selling Medicine Man IPA for the equivalent of £8.30 a pint on Saturday.

Meanwhile, pub pint prices are rocketing by up to 50p in the past month alone, with potentially even worse prices to come.

This is the largest rise in five years and bosses blame it on a 30-year inflation high, soaring energy and transport cost and higher wages, reports the Mirror.

Some fear it will be another nail in the coffin for Britain’s pubs, which were ailing even before the lockdown.

Beyond the extortionate Heathrow prices, a pint of Neck Oil IPA at Borough Market’s Bunch of Grapes pub in south London cost £6.65 on Saturday, while the Dion

Bar, near St Paul’s Cathedral, charged £6.50 for a pint of Gamma Ray.

It is not just London that is getting hit by these soaring prices, with Amstel lager at Manchester airport costing £7 on Saturday. However, the average pint price in the capital is still far greater than in the rest of the UK, standing at £4.07 compared to £4.84 – and London’s Time Out listing magazine has warned that the “sevenpounder is starting to pop up”.

Campaign for Pubs pressure group boss Greg Mulholland told the Mirror that the “extraordinary” prices could put off beer fans from going to the pub

Emma McClarkin, of the British Beer and Pub Association, said: “Pubs are having to find ways to ensure their viability and keep their doors open, because the cost of doing business in 2022 is fundamentally different to 2019.”