Irish pubs closing Down

Rocket_GD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123641788#Comment_123641788

You used to regularly be able to get 8 cans for €12 sometimes even €10 and slabs would be 24 cans for €25-30 around bank holidays. Now the 8 pack usually priced at €16 and the slabs are now min €48 the rare time they're on the shelves.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123641788#Comment_123641788

It has effectively doubled it if you bought in bulk on promotion.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123641803#Comment_123641803

I had a quick Google and the MUP on a 500ml can of 4.5% lager is €1.78.

So you're losing out of the 8cans for €12 (€1.50 each)

And the slabs for €25-30 which is €1.04-€1.25 each

But that doesn't account for prices going up to €2 a can. That's above the minimum price set by the MUP. The MUP is out of the reckoning when the price goes above €1.78.

MUP came in 2022. Do you think the same cost increases that have affected everything else have also affected lager in the supermarket In the last 3 years?

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123641808#Comment_123641808

MUP is €1.78 for a can. For it to double the price, you'd need to get cans for €0.89 in 2021 prices. The cost of everything has gone up since then.

Going by the costs given by the poster above, it would have increase the cost at the time, particularly on bulk buys, but now the costs are way above the MUP. So the MUP isn't the problem. If it was easy to sell cheaper, they could just sell at the minimum price and undercut the competition.

Rocket_GD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123641858#Comment_123641858

I had a detailed response typed out and annoyingly managed to delete it somehow.

Point was no bulk buys anymore due to MUP. Aldi and Lidl used to do 2 slabs for 1 around Christmas time, people could stock up, not anymore.

Supermarkets will always try and squeeze an extra few € out of the shopper.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123641913#Comment_123641913

€20 for 24 was a fairly common promotional price which is 83c.

Off-sales alcohol was historically so expensive in Ireland that it spent a good two decades defying inflation as it came down to something approaching European norms; and as normal competition was introduced - rather than it primarily being sold through publican union associated off-licence franchise brands (Next Door, run by the VFI; and Cheers, run by the LVA)

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123641788#Comment_123641788

Pre-MUP you could get a case of Guinness for €15 at Christmas time and probably for €20-25 most other times… That's gone up to €45 now. I assume the normal 4.5% lager is similar but I admit I wouldn't drink that, so that's somewhere between a doubling and tripling of prices

Even the more expensive stuff that was at or above MUP prices before it was made law has gone up. A bit like the euro changeover of 2000 in many ways.

Because of MUP we now have a huge lack of competition as well. The €1.70 bottle of supermarket ale was priced because there was a 50c can as a form of competition which is now gone.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123641936#Comment_123641936

Yeah fair enough. Definitely losing out on bulk buys by your numbers.

Worth noting you're comparing now to 2021 prices before MUP was inroduced. I'd imagine most of the difference has been eaten by inflation in the meantime.

Rocket_GD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123642039#Comment_123642039

It's not only beers either, used to be able to get a bottle of wine for €5 or even below which was perfect for cooking with, now it's min €8.28. The cheaper spirits are now basically the same price as Smirnoff, GOD help students who just wanted a cheap bottle of vodka for pre drinks, now it's minimum €20.71 where you could get Aldi vodka for €13.

Anyway this thread isn't about MUP, but if anyone thinks that it hasn't had a negative effect on pub drinking they'd be wrong.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123642060#Comment_123642060

Not disputing the broad facts about MUP but the last point is yet to be demonstrated.

Alcohol being more expensive in supermarkets, pushing people to buy more alcohol from supermarkets instead of the even more expensive pub, has yet to be demonstrated.

Likewise, Alcohol being cheaper in supermarkets leading to people buying less alcohol from supermarkets and more from pubs hasn't been demonstrated yet either.

Money is fungible so you could just as easily say utility bills have gone up which leaves less money to spend at the pub. And I think test point has been made loads of times.

An anecdote is grand. But that's all we have.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123642111#Comment_123642111

This is true, the price of everything has gone up and as a result there's less there for the fun things in life. MUP is just one of those things the govt could repeal overnight and it would only remove some of the fuel from the fire that is pub closures.

There's other things they could do to reduce the cost of living and help the pubs out but at the end of the day the govt want us drinking less and having fewer pubs is one of the ways they think they can achieve that goal. It's sad but I can see the trend continuing for a while longer

bladespin

"An anecdote is grand. But that's all we have."

Was strong enough evidence for the government to introduce MUP inthe first place lol.

Anecdotal maybe but when I'm looking at over €6 in a pub for a pint vs €2 at home, I'm much more inclined to do my 'socialising' at home, there's a huge increase in garden parties, BBQs, back garden get togethers in the last few years where as opposed to meeting in the local.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123644713#Comment_123644713

OK. The point the other poster made above is that supermarket alcohol prices increased so they spent too much of their budget earmarked for alcohol in the supermarket and didn't have enough alcohol money left over to go to the pub.

I thought it was pretty counterintuitive that a can going from €1 to €2 in supermarkets would prevent people from spending €6 on a pint in a pub.

In the same time from 2021 to now, the average price of a pint has gone from just over €4 (€3.48-€4.87) to €6.07 according to a quick Google.

So the claim is that cans going up by €1 in supermarkets is the reason people are buying fewer pints, and not pints in pubs going up by €2 (double the increase) in the same time.

BlueSkyDreams

Anyone who visits a pub once a month or more isn't going to have a problem with MUP.

MUP is so low compared to pub prices that all the cans in the supermarket look like a bargain.

bladespin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123645056#Comment_123645056

Not sure the inference was that it was the sole reason but it does play a part, just like everything else, also, as you can see in this thread there's a growing resentment towards the vintners for a number of reasons, MUP would be one of those.