 Poster: A snowHead
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| Quote: |
As someone once told me you are paying for the place to be served and drink it in.
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Indeed.
The local brewery here is about 1km away. Fantastic smell every morning on the way to the office.
€4.50 in their bar
€1.19 (+pfand) for the same beer in a bottle from any supermarket (and that has a 20% inflation since pre-pandemic too)
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Back to Tignes... The 3pint jug in the Loop Bar in leLac is decent value. It does mean 2 of you have to have a min' of 3 pints each* and if another mate turns up and upsets with the maths, it can get messy before you end up with an empty jug. That's how salopette Tuesday happened!
*and no you can't split the remainder 2or3 ways. That'd be rediculas! 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@orange, from what I recall, Trysil is a little less expensive than Hemsedal on the beer front. Still not cheap mind. A few years ago three pints cost about £32. Wasn't helped by the daughter having a local special beer (I was paying after all  )
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Kenzie wrote: |
| Crosbie wrote: |
UK Pint 568ml. French Pinte 500ml. Spanish Jarra 440ml.
You'll probably find that £10 for a UK pint is roughly the same cost per ml as a 10€ pinte.
Amazingly, beer in Spain is still pretty cheap, una Jarra is often under 5€. |
£10 a pint?  Depending on which pub I pay £3.90, £3.78 or £2.50 a pint for cask ale (less in Spoons, especially Monday - Friday). |
Sorry, to be clear the two Spoons in Huddersfield sell cask ale at £2.10, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday they do it for even less - £1.89. By 'which pub' I meant regular ones.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Not many Wetherspoons in the Alps.
10 Euro is my memory from last Christmas, and 20 Euro cocktails!! ( High percentage of females in my family).
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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It's France, one of the world's great wine countries, switch to wine!
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| t44tomo wrote: |
| Legend. wrote: |
| t44tomo wrote: |
| Legend. wrote: |
Anyone trying to compare Spoons prices to the alps is always going to be sorely disappointed. 
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It does beg the question that if they can do it...
i.e. most pubs in London a pint starts with £7.XX. At the O2 your charged around £9. At the Wetherspoons in the O2 shopping centre its under £3 a pint. |
But does it? Is it not obvious? Do you really want nice independent locals to be like a Wetherspoons pub? Personally, I absolutely do not. Getting something cheap does not mean it is better. You are buying a different product as the beer itself is only part of it, the venue and all that it entails is the other part. I would rather drink less beer and sit in a nice pub with a nice landlord/lady served by nice bar staff than a Wetherspoons. But that is just me, we are all different of course. |
Yes its does
Whilst your points on ambiance and atmosphere are valid (albeit some Wetherspoons are very nice, they have in the past made a point reviving some great old buildings etc, but their low prices do draw a certain crown in some places)
...their operating costs are not half those of other pubs, yet their prices are. They are clearly run incredibly efficiently and they purchase well and their volumes sold per Sq ft I imagine are among the highest in the industry.
Both have a place - your independent local and the tow centre Wethies. |
They also tend to get in beer nearing the end of its shelf life, so they are paying lower wholesale prices for the beer.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| johnE wrote: |
| I cannot recall the price of beer in SuperU but at Tesco, Adnams Ghost Ship (a repectable beer) is £4.50 per litre. I imagine SuperU is not much different (except of course the beer is much worse). As someone once told me you are paying for the place to be served and drink it in. |
Some of the Belgium beers in SuperU are really cheap in comparison to what we pay in the UK.
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| alex_heney wrote: |
| t44tomo wrote: |
| Legend. wrote: |
| t44tomo wrote: |
| Legend. wrote: |
Anyone trying to compare Spoons prices to the alps is always going to be sorely disappointed.
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It does beg the question that if they can do it...
i.e. most pubs in London a pint starts with £7.XX. At the O2 your charged around £9. At the Wetherspoons in the O2 shopping centre its under £3 a pint. |
But does it? Is it not obvious? Do you really want nice independent locals to be like a Wetherspoons pub? Personally, I absolutely do not. Getting something cheap does not mean it is better. You are buying a different product as the beer itself is only part of it, the venue and all that it entails is the other part. I would rather drink less beer and sit in a nice pub with a nice landlord/lady served by nice bar staff than a Wetherspoons. But that is just me, we are all different of course. |
Yes its does
Whilst your points on ambiance and atmosphere are valid (albeit some Wetherspoons are very nice, they have in the past made a point reviving some great old buildings etc, but their low prices do draw a certain crown in some places)
...their operating costs are not half those of other pubs, yet their prices are. They are clearly run incredibly efficiently and they purchase well and their volumes sold per Sq ft I imagine are among the highest in the industry.
Both have a place - your independent local and the tow centre Wethies. |
They also tend to get in beer nearing the end of its shelf life, so they are paying lower wholesale prices for the beer. |
Thats an urban myth: https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1049385/does-spoons-buy-nearly-out-of-date-beer-1049385.html
The main reason they can buy beer cheaply is because they are buying in huge quantities
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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and they can dictate the price
some breweries almost certainly make a spoons version though with fewer hops (since hops are expensive), or even adapt their standard brew to save costs where spoons offloads some of the risk to the supplier.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| andy wrote: |
some breweries almost certainly make a spoons version though with fewer hops (since hops are expensive), or even adapt their standard brew to save costs where spoons offloads some of the risk to the supplier. |
That's interesting, hadnt heard that.
Although I had heard the rumour about Spoons buying short dated beer at knock down prices, but realistically you can’t run a business of their size on that type of sporadic supply
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| JohnS4 wrote: |
| alex_heney wrote: |
| t44tomo wrote: |
| Legend. wrote: |
| t44tomo wrote: |
| Legend. wrote: |
Anyone trying to compare Spoons prices to the alps is always going to be sorely disappointed.
|
It does beg the question that if they can do it...
i.e. most pubs in London a pint starts with £7.XX. At the O2 your charged around £9. At the Wetherspoons in the O2 shopping centre its under £3 a pint. |
But does it? Is it not obvious? Do you really want nice independent locals to be like a Wetherspoons pub? Personally, I absolutely do not. Getting something cheap does not mean it is better. You are buying a different product as the beer itself is only part of it, the venue and all that it entails is the other part. I would rather drink less beer and sit in a nice pub with a nice landlord/lady served by nice bar staff than a Wetherspoons. But that is just me, we are all different of course. |
Yes its does
Whilst your points on ambiance and atmosphere are valid (albeit some Wetherspoons are very nice, they have in the past made a point reviving some great old buildings etc, but their low prices do draw a certain crown in some places)
...their operating costs are not half those of other pubs, yet their prices are. They are clearly run incredibly efficiently and they purchase well and their volumes sold per Sq ft I imagine are among the highest in the industry.
Both have a place - your independent local and the tow centre Wethies. |
They also tend to get in beer nearing the end of its shelf life, so they are paying lower wholesale prices for the beer. |
Thats an urban myth: https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1049385/does-spoons-buy-nearly-out-of-date-beer-1049385.html
The main reason they can buy beer cheaply is because they are buying in huge quantities |
True. Quite a few urban myths against Wetherspoons!
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You know it makes sense.
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| Crosbie wrote: |
UK Pint 568ml. French Pinte 500ml. Spanish Jarra 440ml.
You'll probably find that £10 for a UK pint is roughly the same cost per ml as a 10€ pinte.
Amazingly, beer in Spain is still pretty cheap, una Jarra is often under 5€. |
A Spanish jarra is somewhat a specialist subject of mine. The 440ml jarra isn’t ubiquitous. Sometimes it’s 500ml, sometimes 400ml and depending on where you are it can just mean you’re served a caña ‘sized’ beer in a glass with a handle! Sometimes you ask for a jarra and get a blank look and you have to ask for grande or a pinta.
Economies of scale are often not a thing in Spain either. Around my way a caña isn’t the tiny beer it traditionally used to be. It’s typically 330ml (and pretty much anywhere nowadays) and a jarra is 440 or 500ml. €2-2.50 for a caña, €4.50 for a jarra. You’re better off getting 2 cañas most of the time.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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@hammerite, and I thought France was bad. Chope, pinte, serieux, cinquante, grande, etc.
Anyway, thanks for shedding more light on the Spanish measures.
I hope I'm right in thinking that 'pint' is universal in the British Isles. I'd hate to be wrong about saying "Brits don't have any problem when it comes to getting the pint that's been asked for", well unless you start getting into the 'head' issue.
Anyway, as far as Spanish beer goes, my favourite is Mahou Clasica.
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Poster: A snowHead
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@Crosbie, Estrella Galicia or Aguila Sin Filtrar for me. Most commonly drinking Estrella Damm though.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Do Estrella still make Voll & Bock Damm. I did enjoy working in Barcelona 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@johnE, "Adnams Ghost Ship" is alcohol free.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| under a new name wrote: |
| @johnE, "Adnams Ghost Ship" is alcohol free. |
Adnams Ghost Ship is available in two versions. The first is the normal one at a very respectable 4.5% abv. The second is a low alcohol 0.5% abv version which is brewed in the normal way then the alcohol is removed by a reverse osmosis process which leaves the flavour unaffected. The 0.5% abv version still has great flavour and is in my opinion one of the best low/zero alcohol beers available, highly recommended.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@Alastair Pink, ooh. Every day's a school day! Don't see Adnam's beers too often round these parts. Must confess the AF version leaves me cold. My preferences being e.g. Brooklyn Special Effects, Leffe, Bavaria and, bizarrely, 1664 Blanc.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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UK pint = 20floz = 568ml
US pint = 16floz = 473ml
Fr Pinte = Qu'est ce que c'est floz??? = 500ml!
"A pint of clear water weighs a pound and a quarter" in the UK as opposed to "A pint's a pound the world around" across the pond.
For my local beer event, a firkin (72 pints) of average strength ale costs between £105 - £120 incl. VAT. Or around £1.55 a pint on average. Tied pubs pay more and Lager costs more but there's no demand for that 'cos it's shite 
A pint in a pub in these parts (East Cambs) is just shy of a fiver, with pubs in fashionable Cambridge charging £5.50 - £6. Local pubs are generally very quiet, with reduced opening days and times and a reliance on food - when the diners have gone, they are keen to close up ASAP 
I grew up in Shropshire (posh West Midlands) and still spend quite a bit of time over there. Pubs in that area still have a social drinking culture and there are plenty of 'Wet pubs' with the hallowed cloche providing a selection of rolls to soak up excess beer for a couple of quid. Pints in the Black Country generally start with a 3, have a wide selection of great quality beer and and busy all week.....
I wonder if the wet pub model of no 'proper' food, just beer would suit more places which are struggling these days? The costs of installing and running a kitchen, extra staff and perishable food must be very high and they seem to push the beer prices up to compensate - which, in turn, puts off drinkers.
Also, back in my youth, I think my Saturday job paid £2.40ph and a pint was 80p meaning that I was earning 3 pints an hour. These days minimum wage will only buy you two pints an hour in a lot of places, especially if you are fond of fizzy nonsense.....
Anyone fancy a pint?!
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I love it when these topics come up because I happen to own a brewery here in the French Alps (https://sapaudiabrewing.co/) Sapaudia. You may have heard of us, you may have not. We've been brewing for 7 years now and sell across the Tarentaise, 3 Valleys, Chamonix, Morzine plus Lyon & Grenoble. I can tell you that breweries have thin margins!
I agree that the price of beer is overall quite mad in the alps - but there are reasons for it. The cost of running a business here is high, the season is very short, but these businesses have 12 months of costs (rent, insurance, accounts fees etc). The seasons have gotten shorter. Bars in Tignes 7 years ago would open at the start of November when all of the seasonnaires (on UK contracts!) would come out for an elongated staff training. Now most staff don't arrive until early December.
The cost and lack of accommodation has been a huge cost to business owners, either by having to pay staff more (EG: all of my staff are paid on a multiple over minimum wage, but it's locked to minimum wage, so if it goes up, so does their salary, so they essentially get constant inflationary payrises, but inflation is higher in the alps) or they need to buy/rent accommodation themselves to put their staff in. Most bars probably don't own the walls, so they are paying rents to landlords, that are probably slowly ticking up too.
A lot of the businesses probably have to take on a covid loan that is now in the process of being repaid. Staff in France are not cheap.
The big breweries (Heineken, Asahi etc) put their prices up massively post-covid (15% in one year). This accelerated the price of a pint. The list price of our kegged beer has gone up by 22% over 7 years. But actually no one ever pays that price, so we're probably at more like 10% increase. We as a brewery do not make a lot of money. In fact, I employ 4 people, and my salary is currently 0€.
I can track the good/bad weather weeks on our sales charts too - a poor snow year, or a really snowy year (with less sunny days) are bad for business.
Overall, I think if you're savvy and shop around, you can still get a pint of lager for 7€ (not happy our) and our stuff for 8/8.50€ - thats 7 quid. Probably the same price as London in a 'decent bar'.
Regarding Timmy Taylors Landlord, the reason it is such high quality and price, is because they do so much quality control, from a full cold-chain from brewery to the pub, and then also a LOT of staff training in bars on line cleaning, how to serve, how to rack the casks etc etc. That all adds up. And it's why it's consistently so high quality.
Obviously if you want to support a local business, then please buy from a local brewery - Sapaudia, Ibex, Big Mountain etc.
Mont Blanc is not local, or small, it has been bought by Duvel, and the owner made so much money that he was the first Savoyard to go into space. He paid for a trip on Jeff Bezos pint rocket.
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Interesting to hear the perspective from an actual brewery owner, thanks timlongs. I don’t go to France much but if I do I’ll keep an eye out for Sapaudia.
If the pound keeps dropping against the Euro like it has been our ski holiday tipples are going to be even dearer soon!!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I can recommend Tim's beer. My favourite is 'Lost in the woods'
Living in the Black Country, I'm spoilt with real ale pubs, and the cost of a pint where I am is around £3.80, so it's always an eye opener when I have to buy my first pint in the mountains!
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There's a 'micro pub' in town - very small, you can probably get 30 people inside, but it's a very social place. Some tables outside too and it gets busy in the summer. Sells cask beer, canned cider, wine etc. Only food is crisps etc. and pickled eggs 
We go on a Friday in the summer sometimes at 6pm when there's people I know there, sometimes at the weekend we'll grab some food from the nearby Sainsbury's and have that with a drink or 2.
It's been there a few years so seems to have the right approach. The bigger pubs in town are really struggling or have closed - they used to be really busy in the 90's.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Klamm Franzer wrote: |
Anyone fancy a pint?! |
You old smoothy, yes.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@timlongs, I'll always have a pint of your stuff when I see it, also Brasserie du Petit St Bernard (www.brasseriepsb.com) to support Pat. Keep up the good work both of you.
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FAQ
