London Pub Defends Decision To Charge £13.40 For A Pint For Beer

A London pub has hit back at criticism online over its decision to charge £13.40 for a pint of beer.

The Rake in Borough Market went viral for all the wrong reasons after a picture of its menu was posted on Twitter. According to the image, a pint of Cloudwater DIPA, Citra & Amarillo costs £13.40 at the popular central London drinking establishment.

With the average pint taking around 11 sips to drink, that equates to around £1.21 a sip, which is more than the price of a pint in some North East venues and student pubs.

The picture naturally caused an uproar among booze fans online, many of whom balked at the idea of forking out over a tenner for any tipple.

Those behind the scenes at The Rake were even accused of ripping off customers to maximise profits.

Speaking in a statement issued to Sky News, however, the operator behind The Rake, Utobeer, refuted the claims.

They argued that logistics and the beer’s 9 per cent strength were the main reasons behind the price.

“We are not making ‘vast profits’, we work to a margin like all businesses and if we stopped we’d start losing money and eventually go out of business,” they said.

“Cloudwater will not deliver directly to us unless we order a pallet from them & if you know The Rake you’ll also know we do not have the space to store a pallet; so this being the case we have to order through a distributor who will obviously put their margin on it.”

Distributor Euroboozer has also revealed the gross profit on a standard keg of Cloudwater is just £22.39, which led to a notable price adjustment.

Of course, no one is forcing anyone to purchase this particularly pricey tipple but with the average price of a pint in the UK coming in below £3.50, beer drinks could soon be forced to choose between price and taste.