£0.99/pint in Wetherspoons. How do they do that ?

[Andrew Br]

So I'm in Sheffield this evening. Wander out early and have an OK curry and then find the Wetherspoons on West Street to watch the game. A pleasing result if you're from Manchester* (and yes Jaded, Surrey, Devon, Copenhagen, Kuala Lumpur............ .
What struck me as amazing was the price of the cask bitters- £0.99/pint or £1.00 for two halves.
Two questions:-
How do they do that ?
Isn't it a tad irresponsible ?**

I spent a very nice £1.99 on a pint of Harviestown (sp ?), 1/2 Otter and 1/2 Cherry.

* Fletcher's red card will surely be overturned.
** Lager seemed to be £2.00/pint- I guess that's more likely to be used as fighting fuel.

[Martin]

what beer is it? down sarrf it was Greene King IPA (which has now been rebadged as Ruddles) I imagine being the low quality high volume stuff GK specialise in they can buy it in for less than half of the pump price; the rest comes down to clever marketing cheap large premises and no bar staff  . Having enjoyed both a local and international beer fest at £1.69/79 a pint recently I'm loathe to go back to the local alternatives at £2.80-£3; I also like the variety 'spoons offer.

Hopefully one day the others will all follow suit and the decline in pub trade will be reversed.

[padbeat]

Harviestoun is all good stuff  - I used to buy it at the brewery on my way home from work. Rumour has it that they buy it up in bulk as it approaches its BBE date and that's how they can shift it so cheap. A mate of mine owns a pub in Gosport a couple of doors from a Weatherspoons and asked if he could buy 70 pints and leave them in the barrel! They were selling it cheaper than he could buy it in!

[citoyen]

Rumour has it that they buy it up in bulk as it approaches its BBE date and that's how they can shift it so cheap.

Never been proved, as far as I know - cask ale has a short enough shelf life anyway, and it would be impossible to buy it that way in the quantities they need.

From what I can gather, it's because they adopt a supermarket-style approach to buying stock - source centrally and drive down the price they offer suppliers.

Bad news for smaller brewers who can't supply large enough quantities to make a decent profit on the reduced margins. Probably suits the likes of Greene King though.

d.

[FatBloke]

what beer is it? down sarrf it was Greene King IPA (which has now been rebadged as Ruddles) I imagine being the low quality high volume stuff GK specialise in they can buy it in for less than half of the pump price

Greene King IPA and Ruddles Best are 2 entirely different brews, with different flavours and character.

Greene King threatened to stop supplying Wetherspoons if they continued to sell IPA (which GK see as their flagship brand) at reduced cost. They came to an agreement to allow Ruddles Best to be used instead. Ruddles Best is brewed by GK.

FWIW I think the Ruddles is far nicer than IPA.

[plug]

IME, they keep it far too cold.  Presumably to try and weedle as much cellar-life out of it as possible.

[Jaded]

* Fletcher's red card will surely be overturned.

I hope it is (it was a bad decision), so that when they get beaten in the Final, they don't have an excuse. 

[Andrew Br]

* Fletcher's red card will surely be overturned.

I hope it is (it was a bad decision), so that when they get beaten in the Final, they don't have an excuse. 

You crack me up 

[Greenbank]

* Fletcher's red card will surely be overturned.

Unlikely. Card overturning by appeal is an FA/Premier League thing where it can be requested by the club.

Chumpions League means it's UEFA, and the request to overturn it can only come from the ref, as an admission of an error, which is very rare (the only times it has happened in the past are for cases of mistaken identity).

It was harsh though.

[Greenbank]

As expected:

BBC SPORT | Football | Europe | Fletcher red card to stand - Uefa

"Uefa has confirmed that no appeal can be made against the decision, no matter what the referee says in his report. "

I never thought I'd hear the day that ManYoo fans would be whinging about, of all the players, Darren Fletcher being unavailable for the Champions League Final through suspension.

[clarion]

Oh dear.  ManU getting a dodgy decision against them?  What a curiosity!

[Andrew Br]

As expected:

BBC SPORT | Football | Europe | Fletcher red card to stand - Uefa

"Uefa has confirmed that no appeal can be made against the decision, no matter what the referee says in his report. "

I never thought I'd hear the day that ManYoo fans would be whinging about, of all the players, Darren Fletcher being unavailable for the Champions League Final through suspension.

It's a shame- Fletcher has been in great form since Christmas and yes, it's a surprise that I would want him in the team.
Maybe Sir Alex really does know more than most 

Oh dear.  ManU getting a dodgy decision against them?  What a curiosity!

I'll rise above that one because I can

[nuttycyclist]

Look at that.  Cheap beer leads to football arguments.

I've just remembered why I don't drink in pubs very often.

[Greenbank]

Look at that.  Cheap beer leads to football arguments.

I've just remembered why I don't drink in pubs very often.

Not just cheap beer. It's £3.70 for a pint of lager in your average South/South-West London pub and there were still plenty of football arguments.

[Andrew Br]

Actually Nutty, we're largely agreeing about the football here 

And the beer- it was really nice: it tasted fresh and well kept and the temperature was spot on. I think that I was lucky with my choice of beers- I hadn't tried any of them before and I liked the 3 that I had
The surprise was when I paid for the two 1/2s-  "£1 please." "Sorry ?" "£1 please." "£1 each ?" "No, £1 for both." " "

There will be more football agreement in the pub tonight when my Man City supporting friend and I go to discuss our 5-a-side game over a couple of £2.70 pints. That's £2.70 per pint...........

[geraldc]

A few years ago, for some reason the University decided to allow more pubs into Cambridge city centre, and Wetherspoons took over an old cinema and turned it into a massive pub called the Regal. It soon became the most violent pub in the country, based on fights/police call outs, and was threatened with closure. It's full of yoofs tanked up on lagers/alcopops and is quite a scary place.  However we still go back as it's cheap.

No one drinks in Wetherspoons because of the atmosphere, the lack of music or their policy on Europe. They drink there as it's just so much cheaper than everywhere else. I remember getting change from a fiver after getting 3 pints. I was stunned.

[Giraffe]

In Kendal the Ruddles was $1.19; came back to Northampton and it was 99p - touristy areas are dearer.
Had a pint and a goodly (cooked) snack for just under £4.

BTW, found the one in Kendal to be clean, very quick and friendly (based on only 7 visits in a week - needs a bigger sample.

[Riffian]

Wetherspoons negotiate directly with brewers to buy complete brew lengths in one order ie all the beer that the brewery can brew in one go. The brewer is then guaranteed to sell all the beer up front albeit at a lower price.  Whetherspoons are obviously only interested in breweries that have a capacity to make these economies of scale worthwhile.

[Bledlow]

The lnearest Wetherspoons to me stocks beers by  The Loddon Brewery Ltd. I doubt they have the economies of scale you describe. They took the entire workforce along to collect a CAMRA award last year -

All of the staff of the brewery visited Lords Cricket Ground on Saturday 11th October to receive the Champion Beer of Britain (Golden Ale category) Silver medal award for Ferryman's Gold.

[Martin]

From what I can gather, it's because they adopt a supermarket-style approach to buying stock - source centrally and drive down the price they offer suppliers.

Bad news for smaller brewers who can't supply large enough quantities to make a decent profit on the reduced margins. Probably suits the likes of Greene King though.

I don't think that's the case; in Sussex and Surrey they deal locally with some very good little breweries (Pilgrim; Hepworths, Westerham, Arundel, Hammerpot, Kings, Weltons etc, but never Harveys) who certainly can't afford to give a it away. I think because they can just include their houses in the normal local deliveries from those brewers they can cut down overheads. Spoons low prices don't come from an cheaper or inferior product they come IMO from their business model, open their pubs from morning to night and get a big throughput especially for food and from families and also frankly groups of people that would not normally go into pubs, make them sufficiently bland and sterile that nobody feels they are walking into anybody's local, and also by employing less staff in vast premises.

what beer is it? down sarrf it was Greene King IPA (which has now been rebadged as Ruddles) I imagine being the low quality high volume stuff GK specialise in they can buy it in for less than half of the pump price

Greene King IPA and Ruddles Best are 2 entirely different brews, with different flavours and character.

Ok I stand corrected; I knew Ruddles was brewed by GK but have never had it since the Rutland brewery closed down so didn't know what it tastes like.

[keepontriking]

Ok I stand corrected; I knew Ruddles was brewed by GK but have never had it since the Rutland brewery closed down so didn't know what it tastes like.

Many years ago I was invited to the launch of thr Ruddles Best when they sold out to Grand Met - I still have the boxed tankard, a bribe to say nice things.
It didn't taste of much then and it tastes of even less now - it is simply another Greene King brand name

[Kathy]

Well, we went to the 'spoons last night and cautiously ordered a half pint each. It was an improvement on last time we visted: my porter was actually drinkable (though watery and flavourless) and Tim managed to drink nearly a quarter of a pint before abandoning it in disgust.

So then we went to a proper pub. 

[Andrew Br]

So then we went to a proper pub. 

Ooooh that looks nice 

We're off here tonight Marble Beers
(Marble Beerhouse: website isn't the best  )

[SteveC]

From what I can gather, it's because they adopt a supermarket-style approach to buying stock - source centrally and drive down the price they offer suppliers.

Bad news for smaller brewers who can't supply large enough quantities to make a decent profit on the reduced margins. Probably suits the likes of Greene King though.

I don't think that's the case; in Sussex and Surrey they deal locally with some very good little breweries (Pilgrim; Hepworths, Westerham, Arundel, Hammerpot, Kings, Weltons etc, but never Harveys) who certainly can't afford to give a it away.

The quantities small breweries consider 'large' (or large enough for a discount) can be very small.  I once ordered 5 firkins (9 gallon barrels) from Cottage Brewery (CAMRA Ale of the Year winning brewery and fairly successful locally) and was only charged for four.  I was told it was a bulk order discount.  Certainly helped the profits at our do!

S

[joe1983]

Gerald I used to go to uni in Cambridge and used to go to the Wetherspoons for breakfast before lectures sometimes. Truly the dregs of society in there at that time - shaking waiting for their first beerof the day.

We always used to go across the road to Emma College bar, cheaper drinks and nicer people. The porter is the antichrst though