Blow to drinkers as eye-watering price a pint of beer will hit by 2040 revealed
THE sobering prospect of paying £25 a pint by 2040 is on the horizon, a study warns.
The average cost of a lager has already gone up 11 per cent this year to £4.69.
If that rate is maintained annually, then in 16 years it will cost a wallet-busting £25.70.
Drinkers have already faced a 28 per cent rise over the past five years from when a pint was £3.67.
Sun columnist Jeremy Clarkson last year linked escalating prices to poor spring barley crops.
Barley is key to the malting stage in production.
Jeremy, who has his own lager brand Hawkstone, jokingly warned: “That’s going to make a pint of lager cost more than a medium-sized hatchback.”
The latest research, by FruitySlots.com and based on Office for National Statistics data, adds to pressure on boozers as beer becomes increasingly unaffordable.
Pub closures are already up 51 per cent to 80 a month in the first three months of this year.
James Rosen, of FruitySlots, said: “The study provides insight into the costs faced by patrons today and potentially in the future.”
Tom Porter, 44, of Berkhamstead, Herts, said he still found it amazing that some pubs charged over a fiver for a pint.
He said: “I’m only just getting my head round paying £5 for a pint.
“If it gets to a tenner that’s bad enough – I’ll certainly not be getting the rounds in – and if it gets to £25-a-pint I’m going teetotal.”