Brit pubs face crisis as beer set to rise by 50p - and Londoners may fork out £7 a pint

dailystar.co.uk:

beer is set to skyrocket in what is already being described as a beer crisis. Anyone who's ever set foot in London knows all too well the sickening feeling of paying over £7 for a pint and there are genuine fears that this could soon be the norm in pubs.While the price of a good time won't set you back quite as much outside the capital, prices could still increase by as much as 50p industry insiders have warned.

According to Clive Watson, chairman of the City Pub Company (CPC), the cost of a pint could soon soar because of spiralling costs from pub suppliers.Mr Watson said a major beer supplier had told his chain that beer prices were going to rise 7% and that the costs would have to be passed on to the consumer.But why do we have a beer crisis?

And how do we stop it? CoventryLive previously reported that Mr Watson had warned that price increases for food and drink were "inevitable" amid a surge in the firm’s energy bills and other cost rises and as the industry attempts to recoup trade lost at the end of last year.December "began well" for CPC, which runs around 50 pubs, predominantly in London and the south of England.But trade eventually dropped to about 85% of pre-pandemic levels after "most office party bookings were cancelled".Despite a slow start to the year, a "significant increase in trade" was reported over the past 10 days. To stay up to date with all the latest news, make sure you sign up for one of our newsletters here.Mr Watson said: "We obviously did not start the year in quite the place we would have hoped a month earlier, but we’ve seen positive signs in the past week or two."It will take a bit of time before we get back to the levels we saw in October or November but hopefully will be there by the end.