A bitter taste Fears for pub culture as the average price of a pint hits £5

A bitter taste

- Robyn Vinter

It makes sense to Rachel Reeves, I don't know if it makes sense to anyone else," said a grumbling pubgoer on hearing the news that pints are on course to rise above the £5 mark for the first time in history next month. According to research by Frontier Economics commissioned by the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), the average price of a pint of beer is set to reach £5.01 in April, a 21p rise.

The increase is down to larger overheads, including a rise in the national minimum wage and in national insurance. Discounts on business rates that hospitality businesses have been entitled to are also decreasing, from 70% to 40%.

In the market town of Otley, West Yorkshire, arguably the UK's most well-known pub town, afternoon drinkers did not welcome the news.

"I think this summer it will get to the point where on a nice sunny day people will just sit in the garden because they can't afford to go to the pub," one man said. He said that although he had retired five years earlier, he had needed to go back to work as a delivery driver to keep up with the cost of living.

"Without a doubt, I can feel the cost of living crisis," he said. "You go to supermarkets and you just see everything going up."