£4 pint predicted as price of hops and barley soar

Published on Thursday 13 December 2007 21:50

DRINKERS could be facing the £4 pint next year as steep rises in the cost of hops and barley are passed onto pub-goers, a Scottish brewer warned yesterday.

The price increases are another example of "agflation" – the climbing cost of food and drink in response to extra demand caused by the world's growing population, the shift towards grain-based biofuels and the effects of severe weather on crops.

Stephen Crawley, managing director of Edinburgh's Caledonian Brewery, told trade magazine the Morning Advertiser: "All indicators are suggesting 2008 and beyond could be more challenging than we have all anticipated.

"Brewers I have spoken to have never known raw material prices to increase the way they are at the moment. Who knows whether we will actually see the 4 pint in 2008, but in some London and other city venues I think it will happen."

Paul Waterson, of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association, said: "We have been a nation of take-home drinkers for some time now, because of the sharp difference between the price in the pub and the artificially low price in the supermarket. The drinker in the pub is effectively subsidising the discounts in the supermarket."

He warned: "Continued price rises will mean the death knell of hundreds of pubs in Scotland."

But Geordie Kidston, senior research officer at stockbrokers JM Finn, said: "A lot of the problem has stemmed from a harvest failure in Australia, a once-in-100-year occurrence that has added to demand for grain at a time that more of it is being sought to make ethanol for fuel."

&#149 Official estimates of alcohol consumption have increased to reflect stronger wine and larger glasses.

The Office for National Statistics has updated its drinking assessment method for the first time since 1978, raising estimates of average consumption from 10.8 units to 14.3 units per person a week, when applied to 2005 ONS data.

Women's estimated intake increases by 45 per cent to 9.4 units per week because they drink more wine than men. Men's consumption increases by 26 per cent, from 15.8 to 19.9 units.