Was in a pub last week and I ordered a bottle of MGD, they served me a bottle from a multi packs in Dunnes. When I pointed it out I was told that if I didn’t want it leave. That’s exactly what I did. Publicans need to wise up, the gravy train they were on over the last 15 years has derailed.

Pub prices are too expensive… the pubs promised to match a government excise duty cut around 2009… when the excise duty was cut the following year the pubs conveniently forgot their pledge.

Pubs need to re-think their business model, Sky Sports on TVs and blaring jukeboxes are not quality entertainment.

Maybe if publicans drop their prices people might be more willing to go to pubs than go to tesco and get cheaper drink

Gave up cigarettes 8 years ago ( thanks to my children )
Gave up drink 6 months ago.
The joint savings will buy you a new car after a couple of years.
Best move ever.

Come to Mo’s, it’s great crack.

Bad service + over pricing= less profit….cop yourselves on publicans

Well they had it over priced for too long
Anyway

lots of thumb downs for sensible comments above. The VFI need to realise that 4.75-5.50 for 1 pint is ridiculous. Stop blaming the smoking ban, lidl/tesco, the recession, etc etc. Its just TOO expensive to drink in a pub these days. Added that some pubs have crap loud music where you cannot talk doesn’t help the allure of paying ?5 a pint. Publicans seem convinced its nothing to do with the price that keeps people away. wake up.

Even though a pub provides me with my living, which in these times I am grateful for, I have more or less given up on them as my personal social outlet. These days I prefer to save my few quid when I can and take a cheap flight across to Europe for a couple of days now and again. I get more value out of that than going into the same ole places, serving the same ole crap generic beers, and listening to and looking at a pack of eejits drink themselves to oblivion. Where’s the fun in that. Give me culture and experiences any day rather than the above, just my personal preference though.

Now to the pricing, I have to say the bar I work in, a local in Limerick, is reasonable, you’ll get long necks for €3.10, Guinness, Smithwicks for €3.60, Tuborg, Fosters, Carling, Beamish for €3.10 and Heineken, Budweiser for €4.10 seven days a week. The owner of the bar has the prices as low as he can go given the costs of running the business, I can vouch for his sincerity there. It’s better to make a little profit and hold your head above the water for the long term than to make a fast buck and crash and burn.

The headline says we’re spending less on alcohol but the article relates to the pub trade. Are we spending less on alcohol generally, or just not going to the pub? With supermarkets and off licences selling drink at a fraction of the price, I’d imagine the drinking is happening at home rather than in Pubs. Wouldn’t say as a nation we’re drinking any less…

Here’s the problem… Went to the pub for lunch after taking the family to the NAC last week. As I was driving pint of larger shandy for me €5.. WTF small glass of coke for the lad €2.50 WTF missus had a bottle of cider not cidre €5.50 WTF ..

Must be hard running pub these days , but publicans seem to only know how to run businesses during boom or when everything in Ireland revolved around pubs , look at the prices issue , I paid 550 for a rock shandy as I wasn’t driving , now that’s nothing to do with tax , or excise or smoking ban or drink driving it’s just price gouging , and stiffing the remaining customers because they trying to make up for lost business is head in sand and will back fire , get the prices under control !!

vis. publicans-in the words of Frasier Crane:screw ‘em.
Ive been in hundreds of pubs up and down the country for years, and the overall experience is average, tipped to the mildly positive by the handful of good experiences. Recently, my own local is serving multi packs split, and continuing to try and get away with it despite having had it pointed out more than once. Same goes for crisps. This isnt desperation, this is greed.
The myth of the great irish pub died with big screen tvs and alcopops.

Look around, 4 bottles in Bleeding Horse €10

I have zero sympathy for publicans. Their prices are as extortionate as ever, and with only a few exceptions they are doing nothing to counter the recession. My understanding is that approx 5 pubs are closing per week, this will continue until they get real. I’m not so sure that less is being spent on alcohol overall. The off licence trade is booming.

last sunday along with my gf we visited a hotel in naas, she had a coffee and as i wasnt having alcohol i had 2 bttls of non alco beer in a pint glass… these non alco drinks and coffee cost ?11.30. there is no incentive to cut down on alcoholic beer if wat is essentially a pint if non alco beer works out a ?9. wat a mad lil country..

If barman realised that people go to pubs more if they had interesting local beers and ales on tap at reasonable prices and that people enjoy comfortable social areas that allows easy conversation. Too many places have shite music blaring out so loud you can’t heard yourself think with threadbare worn seats that have been there since 1978

Glad as hell my family got out of the pub trade in 2001, parents wanted to retire and we saw changes coming……75 years was enough to be in the business.

Anyone who thinks running a pub is easy or a laugh is a fool and anyone getting into the pub trade at the moment is in my view an even bigger fool,

just like property in this country….still too expensive and still massively over priced with no value for money.

I think you’ll find that most of the GOOD pubs are doing just fine. There are many that are offering good food, wide selection of tap beer, cocktails etc and are doing well considering the recession and what not.

The only time I ever go to a pub is when we are in Norfolk where my husbands family are from. The pubs there are VERY family friendly. They are beautifully decorated, serve fantastic food reasonably priced food, always have a wine list, absolutely none of those awful little bottles. They usually have some local beers/ales/ciders. They don’t have TV’s. These are the pubs I like and will happily spend my money in. Does anyone know of anything like this in Dublin? I would be delighted to find something similar.

I miss Irish pubs and seeing Sally and the way she would look at you :)

I go to my local “the jockey” in Manchester were you can get a pint and 2 Es and still get change out of £5. Now that’s value

Ye all need to come to donegal where bottles come in crates, and are sold at three euro each, pints are €3.50 with the exception of fosters which is €3 and there is no sky sports because of the extortionate amount they charge publicans to show their channel.

€6 euro a pint in town in some places…my heart bleeds for them!

A rule of thumb for fair pricing imo would be in the region of E3 a bottle and E3.50 – E4 for a pint. Anything more doesn’t seem like value.

Other absolute turn offs are racing on all day, sky news being the default channel and soaps on in the eveni. Anyone who feels the need to watch Eastenders in the pub should just save their money and stay at home. You can’t over emphasise the importance of a good chat and a bit of craic in a bar. Oh, and a decent pint that keeps its head.

20 bottles of coors lite in my local supermarket €20,,, 20 bottles of coors lite in my local pub €90,, i enjoy going out and meeting up with friends in public inns but that price diffrence is quite shocking and is the main reason that trips to the pub have become less frequent for me and my better half over the last few years,,, sadly………

What annoys me is the price difference between pubs. Take the pint of stout as the standard. In urban areas it’s almost always over 4 euro, Dublin much much more, then in rural pubs it’s 3.70-3.80?

I dont think it is all about prices.
An upside to the recession is that people have more time for family life and although have less money are finding life richer. So alcohol is no longer a coping mechanism. (im conscious this doesnt apply to everyone)

Most pubs are caught in a time warp with their dark dreary decor which only manages to attract the beer sharks (and they’re not getting any younger). Plus, the range of good beers is limited. They’ve actually reaped what the sowed. As the song goes, ‘it was acceptable in the 80s’.

Came home for a holiday went to the local and the regulars were bringing in plastic bags of sandwiches and rolls soo funny!
Went to the late bar in the city my Sis and I wer almost the only women purchasing drinks at the bar!
Very large groups of women with huge handbags making lots of trips to the toilet!
Wudnt blame them if that’s the only way they can try to get out!

Why do people winge that they have to pay $4.50+ for a pint but will happily pay $2.50 for a cappuccino?! The mark is far higher with the coffee but no body ever gives out about those pesky coffee shop owners trying to rip everyone off

If you thinks a pint is expensive here, its nine euro for a pint in Sweden.

Legalized Drug dealers, it causes me to shudder sometimes to see them pontificating about society trends

I think all this talk about the price of a pint is a non issue.. If a pub has good attributes like good food, ambience,friendly and professional service, cleanliness etc etc i think this is Much more important than the fact that they charge €4.80 instead of €4 for a pint..

Although it may seem there are no pubs which have all these attributes they do intact exist!

Example: would ya rather sit in somewhere like Mcdaids or mulligans having the craic and drinking pints of stout for €4.40( or whatever they charge) or sit in some kip like the Q bar just because they are doing their pints for €3.50??

Yes, of course it’s all the publicans fault that the price of drink is so high. Sure it definitely has nothing to do with extortionate licensing fees, VAT increase, council rates, overpriced utility bills, paying for entertainment (eg €700 p/m for Sky Sports) that publicans decide to charge c. €4.75+ for a pint. I’ll tell you that bar the Copperface Jacks etc of this country there are little to no pubs turning a profit. And to the people complaining about TVs being on in pubs the solution is simple. Go to a different bar, one that might have a little thing I like to call character.

“IT’S A TOUGH trade for Irish pubs at the moment as the recession and subsequent lower incomes have seen customers spend less of their discretionary money in bars and clubs.”

Not a mention of the extortionate prices of alcohol in this country.It’s the same with retailers,very quick to play the poor mouth,but shush up pretty rapidly when you mention how they spent the boom years overcharging for everything.Sadly,as always,it’s the people that work for them I feel for,because they are the ones that suffer as a result.

High prices and the smoking ban are killing the pub trade,together with drink driving laws.

I think the cities are still charging too much for whatever reason. Dublin and Limerick pubs are still charging 4.60/4.70 for a pint. That is the same as during the boom. Country pubs have copped on. Pints are under 4 eur and happy hours during matches 3 eur. Tuborg on sale for 3 eur at all times. Some pubs are thriving as they are clean, serving good food and good coffee. We Irish drink too much anyway especially over a short period cramming massive volumes into ourselves over a short period. The pint measure is too big here. On the continent they have a better system with smaller glass sizes.

shut them all down, who cares, it will be the best think to happing Ireland

Worth noting the lack of detail in these figures – it could just mean for example that a person is buying three pints instead of three vodka and red bulls, which would be more than 34% cheaper if you think about it.