“Pubs are too expensive.”
It’s something we hear almost daily. Often from people quite happily spending £6 on a coffee or upgrading a perfectly good phone at £1200, while insisting that £6 for a pint is somehow unreasonable.
So let’s slow this down and look at what you’re actually paying for.
You’re not paying £6 for beer.
You’re paying for the experience of a pub, and everything that makes it possible.
That includes the heating being on before you arrive and the lights staying on after you leave. It includes clean facilities, washed glasses, trained staff, and a safe, welcoming environment. It includes licences, insurance, business rates, tax, and the fees taken every time a card is tapped. And when something goes wrong at an inconvenient hour, it’s the landlord dealing with it.
A pint isn’t just a drink.
It’s access to a shared public space. A place where you can sit without being rushed, talk without being moved on, and feel part of something. A place to socialise, decompress, meet friends, and belong.
Pubs aren’t competing with supermarket alcohol. They’re competing with the idea that community should come at no cost.
What’s striking is that the same people who talk about the “death of the British pub” are often the ones who treat pubs like overpriced off-licences.
But pubs don’t sell beer.
They sell first dates that turn into long relationships. They host wakes where memories are shared properly. They’re the setting for nights that start with “just one” and end as something memorable. They’re somewhere to go when the world feels heavy and home feels too quiet.
They sell a place to not be alone.
If what you want is the cheapest alcohol possible, the sofa and a supermarket four-pack will always win. But low cost is not the same as value.
Pubs exist to provide warmth, space, hospitality, and human connection. That has a cost – and it’s one worth paying if we want pubs to survive.