WE will spend £7billion on beer this year as the price of a pub pint nudges £6 for some after Covid. But you can slash your booze bill and still get merry.
The British love their pubs, but many say a pint is up to £1 too expensive, a YouGov study shows.
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Some crisis-hit boozers, trying to claw out of lockdown debt, have upped their prices — with a pint now up to £4, on average.
But in London, where the average is £5.19, some bars are charging £6, making a round of six drinks close to £40 if including a tip for table service.
Elsewhere a pint is £4.34 in Birmingham and £3.94 in Manchester but just £3.08 in Dundee.
Join four million drinkers at social clubs and you will enjoy bargain beers for around £1.50 in the North and £3.50 in the South.
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Pick from 1,800 working men’s clubs, 427 Royal British Legion venues, social clubs and hundreds of Conservative, Labour and Liberal clubs.
Forget stereotypes of old men and Seventies furniture, venues are refurbished, popular with families and have a wide selection of drinks.
Annual membership is generally £5 to £25. Anyone can join, male or female, as long as they meet a club’s requirements — usually passing a brief interview or a referral from a member.
They offer cheap drinks, as they are run for the benefit of members, rather than as commercial businesses like pubs.
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John Baker, a London branch secretary for the Working Men’s Club and Institute Union (CIU), said: “Club life is so different from pub life — it’s a lot cheaper and you make more friends, as most customers are regulars.
“We’ve moved with the times, with modern, family-friendly clubs, weekend entertainment and a real mix of ages. There’s a wide range of drinks and anyone can join. Speak to your local CIU club.”
Drinkers can also save around £2 a pint by supping at Wetherspoon, which has 870 pubs and offers £2.99 pints in London and £1.69 Ruddles ale in Yorkshire.
The chain — wrongly sneered at by some — has won awards for its beer, has a bumper low-price menu and is recognised for good bar service.
Top tips
DRINK AT HOME
YOU might be sick of boozing where you live after doing so during lockdown – but at least you are now allowed to get your mates round. A supermarket or off-licence pint averages just £1.
SAVE: £3 a pint
FREE PERONI
SIGN up for the Pizza Express mailing list and get a free Peroni bottle with a main course. Some pubs do happy hours before 6pm with two-for-one or 50 per cent off deals.
SAVE: Up to £4 a pint
CHEAP CLUBS & PUBS
DRINK in one of thousands of social clubs or Wetherspoons and save £2 a pint. Clubs say you will make more friends than at pubs. Looking for a catch? There isn’t one.
SAVE: £2 a pint
CHEAP BEER
SWAP premium lagers Birra Moretti and Amstel for Carling or Foster’s and save 50p to £1 a pint. It is like changing your shopping from Waitrose to Morrison’s – it gets the job done, but costs less.
SAVE: £1 a pint
Wetherspoon spokesman Eddie Gershon said: “We are far cheaper than other pubs, as we price drinks to attract customers.
“We are popular with customers, with the quality of our pubs recognised by the Good Pub Guide.”
Other ways to cut your pint costs include swapping from premium to mid-range lagers, grabbing free drink offers via mailing lists, drinking in cheaper cities or at home — and the nuclear option, going teetotal.
So stop crying into your pint when your beer bill arrives and follow our handy guide showing you how to get more drinks for your money.
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We raise a glass to pint for £3.50
DAN BUSHELL and his stepson drink twice a week at their local working men’s club, saving £2 on every pint.
The 44-year-old plumber has been going to the CIU club in Southfields, South West London, since he was a youngster. It has nine drinks on tap, weekend discos and a mix of male and female members.
Dan, drinking a £3.50 San Miguel, said: “I started coming here with my dad 35 years ago and now I come with my stepson.
“It’s cheap but I come for the community. Everyone’s friends.
“Hundreds of people get so much out of our club – and it’s all thanks to our tireless club secretary Elaine Reilly, who has run the place for 20 years.”
Dan’s stepson Jack Dunne, 20, a gas engineer, said: “There’s nowhere cheaper and it’s a great atmosphere, with pool, darts and footie on the TVs. I bring my pals and they love it too.
“OK, the bar hasn’t got champagne – but it’s got prosecco.”
Ring the changes with doorbell
HOLIDAYS, lunch dates and nights out are back – so what better time than now to put a ring on it? I mean a doorbell, not a diamond.
As we spend more time away from home, video doorbell leader Ring has announced the latest version of its original doorbell is now available for just £49.
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The Ring Video Doorbell Wired previously cost £150 so this huge price drop means more families can access the added security and convenience.
This model connects to existing wiring and lets you see, hear and speak to whoever is at your door, from wherever you are via an app on your phone.
This is incredibly handy when a package arrives while you are out. Answer the doorbell from your phone and let the delivery driver know where to leave it. The Ring Video Doorbell also uses motion detection to send you alerts when someone steps on to your doorstep, whether they ring the doorbell or not.
You can specify the area of detection so that you are not bombarded with alerts every time a car drives by.
It comes with a 30-day free trial of Ring Protect – which automatically saves any videos it records for 30 days so you can rewatch and share them with neighbours or local police if need be.
Ring Protect starts at £2.50 per month and is not required to use the video doorbell – you just won’t be able to save, rewatch and share the videos or capture photos from your device once the free trial ends.
Below are some other handy security ideas . . .
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RING VIDEO DOORBELL PRO 2: For those who don’t mind splurging, this is Ring’s top premium doorbell at £219. It boasts features including head-to-toe video so you can see packages left on the doorstep.
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RING ALARM 2.0: This £219 security system is simple for users to install and provides a great, commitment-free alarm system that works alongside Ring video doorbells within the same smartphone app.
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RING SPOTLIGHT CAM: The £179 motion-activated spotlight and night-vision camera can alert you to intruders – and even scare them away with a handy siren you can activate from your smartphone.
‘Lossless’ music
APPLE has laid down the gauntlet to Spotify, offering high-definition – or “lossless” – songs at no extra cost.
Its Music service is also rolling out “spatial audio” with support for Dolby Atmos.
This lets artists mix sound from all around and above, instead of just left and right. So-called 3D music is the most revolutionary update since stereo took over from mono.
Both will be included in Apple Music’s regular subscription price of £9.99 per month.
Spotify announced a lossless tier is coming but has not said at what price. Tidal offers lossless streaming at £19.99 a month.
Lossless means the entire original audio file is preserved, so listeners hear the exact same thing the artists created in the studio – meaning CD-quality listening or better.
This in turn means much bigger files, so lossless will use more mobile data to stream and more storage for downloads.
Apple Music users will need to turn on lossless in settings and can set it to only come on with wifi.
Drinkers head inside pubs at midnight as indoor socialising allowed for first time since November
