Are the youngsters being priced out of socialising?

During the Euros match between England and Switzerland I found myself in a historically-rich City of London pub, the atmospheric Viaduct Tavern, that is in the hands of Fuller’s who had a good range of beers on the bar including a quaffable 4% pale ale on cask from a fashionable craft brewery.

Although I was fully ensconced in the game I couldn’t help but notice a group of people in their early twenties who were undoubtedly students meeting up for an early evening drink. The way they were nursing their drinks I suspect they were most likely studying medicine.  They undoubtedly have fine careers ahead of them and their patients will be in very safe hands.

During the course of the match – which went into penalties – most of them seem to have only consumed a pint or so. This took me back to my days as a student when one pint on an evening out would not have qualified it as an evening out. But then when I realised my, admittedly premium option, cask ale was £7.10 and the keg beer I tried was £8.15 (my solo pub visit set me back £26.45) my sympathies were very much with them.

When you have limited disposable income as a younger visitor to pubs and restaurants then these numbers must seem astronomical. This is certainly no dig at Fuller’s – and yes, I am talking about the pricey City of London – because the average cost of a pint of standard draught lager across the whole of the UK covering all pub companies has been on a tear in recent years.

It has increased from £4.57 to £4.78 between June 2023 and June 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which represents a 29.1% jump on the cost of the same pint in June 2019 when it stood at a much more acceptable £3.70.

No wonder the concept of rounds has disappeared among younger drinkers. The numbers are simply too big to jump in and buy for a group of anything larger than about two people. Such price rises have no doubt contributed to the reduced consumption of alcohol – certainly in hospitality venues – and my own take here is that these people have not necessarily switched to low or no alcohol drinks because they are just as costly as the full-fat alcoholic versions. Lesser alcohol consumption in many cases must be down to cost rather than for health reasons despite much of the narrative in the industry pushing the line that youngsters have all gone teetotal.

In the past Sam Smith’s had been a safe haven for cash-strapped students in London frazzled by the pricing in other pubs but even here the prices have skyrocketed. A recent visit to the glorious Fitzroy Tavern involved pints over the £7 mark and my own favourite Sam Smith’s beer Nut Brown Ale at 5% is now a punishing £6.90 for a 355ml bottle (that’s the equivalent of £9.20 a pint). It looks like JD Wetherspoon is becoming the one standout option for value.

It’s clearly not only in the boozer that we are seeing cutbacks in hospitality spending among youngster as take-away consumption (definitely the domain of the young, especially when delivery is factored in) has dropped this year. In May 2024 the level of spending on takeaways and fast food declined for the first time since May 2020, according to Barclays, which also found that 54% of people stated they are cutting back on such treats and 53% are also reducing their eating out at restaurants.

We all know the various factors behind the higher prices in the industry but the upshot is that a generation is potentially being lost to the uplifting joy that is brought by drinking and dining out in pubs and restaurants. Maybe operators need to investigate the potential of introducing some sort of student/young persons’ discounts. The ability for today’s tech to run complex, multi-level loyalty schemes must make this a possibility although care clearly has to be taken as Pret A Manger cited students sharing its subscription scheme as a reason for dramatically changing the proposition.

As I was mulling over this situation an email from Fuller’s landed in my in-tray highlighting a ‘Five Pound Land’ promotion on Thursdays at my local the Great Northern Railway Tavern involving a selected pint of beer, wings or a Negroni all at a very affordable fiver. It’s not restricted to just younger customers but it’s a good start and I’m sure it will go down very well with this cost-conscious grouping who invariably inject life into my local and across hospitality in general. The reality is, if the Viaduct Tavern and GNRT, along with other pubs, were solely full of people like me then I’d probably stop going.

Glynn Davis, editor of Beer Insider 

This piece was originally published on Propel Info where Glynn Davis writes a regular Friday opinion piece. We would like to thank Propel for allowing the reproduction of this column.