Your Pint Just Got Pricier - Stonegate Slaps Landlords with 4% Beer Hike

By HOAR Team 1 May, 2025 6 mins read 77 Views

God. I'm starting to think my local bartender wasn't joking when he said I should start brewing in my bathtub. The price of a decent pint in Britain is becoming an actual joke.

Stonegate Group (yep, the massive chain that owns practically half the pubs you've ever stumbled out of at 2am) just announced they're jacking up their wholesale prices by 4% this week. Translation: your favorite pint is about to cost even more. As if my wallet wasn't crying enough already.

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Another Day, Another Price Hike

Starting May 2nd, Stonegate is hitting their leased and tenanted pubs with this increase. We're talking about the places you actually like going to - Slug & Lettuce, Walkabout, Popworld - all those spots where you've made questionable life decisions after one too many.

I was chatting with my mate who runs a small pub in Manchester last night. His response: "Already updating my resume." Poor bloke.

The math is pretty simple and extremely depressing. That Hofbräu Original Lager that currently sets you back £5.50? Expect to shell out around £5.75 now. The Thistly Cross cider I've been obsessed with since 2018 will jump from a fiver to about £5.20.

Landlords are absolutely fuming.

Why is everything so bloody expensive?

Stonegate's excuse? The usual suspects. Energy bills that make your eyes water, staff wages, and licensing costs that keep climbing faster than my neighbor's ivy. A spokesman gave teh standard corporate line about "significant cost pressures" and being "absolutely committed to supporting our publicans." Sure, mate. Supporting them right into bankruptcy.

This couldn't come at a worse time. Remember when Rachel Reeves hiked National Insurance earlier this month? Employers now pay 15% instead of 13.8%, and the threshold dropped from £9,100 to £5,000. That's expected to stuff about £25billion into the Treasury's pockets.

I spent £4K setting up a home bar during lockdown, and honestly, it's starting to look like my smartest investment ever.

The £5 Barrier Has Been Smashed

The British Beer and Pub Association is warning that the average pint price is about to crash through the £5 barrier, jumping from £4.80 to £5.01. I remember when I first moved to London in 2011 and complained about paying £3.20 for a pint. I feel stupid now.

Emma McClarkin from the association put it perfectly: "No one wants to see the cost of an average pint increase by a further 21p and break the £5 average pint barrier." No kidding, Emma.

The Domino Effect

Listen. This isn't happening in isolation.

Wetherspoons (aka the only place where I could still pretend pints were affordable) has already raised prices by up to 30p on some drinks. Young's added 20p per pint, Mitchells and Butlers went up 15p, while Fuller's and Marston's "only" hiked by 10p. How generous.

Then there's that alcohol duty increase from February... and now some weird new waste packaging tax that's adding another 10p to anything in glass bottles.

My friend who works at a brewery in Bristol called it "the perfect storm for watching your customers disappear." He wasn't smiling when he said it.

The Wider Retail Bloodbath

It's not just pubs either. The British Retail Consortium says food prices will jump 4.2% later this year. Greggs has already bumped sausage rolls from £1.25 to £1.30 (adn somehow that tiny increase feels like a personal attack).

Next is planning a "reluctant" 1% price rise after calculating the NI changes will cost them £67million. Halfords, Royal Mail, Primark... they're all hinting at price hikes too.

I visited three different pubs last weekend to compare prices. The bartender at the third one actually laughed when I asked if they had anything under £5. Not in a nice way.

Is This the End of the Local?

Stonegate claims they've invested over £100million in fancy revamps like Rita's Beerhall in Leeds. That's great and all, but what good is a shiny new beer hall if nobody can afford to drink there?

Back in 2019, I bet a colleague that we'd see £6 as the standard pint price by 2025. He owes me dinner now, but somehow I'm not celebrating.

The great British pub was already on life support. This might just be the final pint... I mean, nail in the coffin.

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