Good value in beer is easy to define: it’s when you get more than you expect for the price you pay. Like perfect pints of Butcombe Bitter for £3.
This is our contribution to edition #146 of the (revived) Session which is being hosted by Ding at Ding’s Beer Blog. Each month, a different beer blogger sets a topic and others respond, if they feel like joining in.
We had fun discussing this with each other on a ramble through Varna, Bulgaria, which we’ve just reached on our long trip across Europe by train and bus.
First, we had to unpick the word ‘value’ a bit. It’s almost always used in the context of good value and poor value.
Can a beer have neutral value? As in, we’d expect to pay about £5 for a pint of decent cask ale in Bristol, and when we get that, we’re quite happy. That’s value.
Perhaps it’s also a ‘dog bites man’ situation. Neutral value, acceptable value, goes unnoticed. It’s only when something makes us say “Flipping heck – you’re taking the piss!” or “Wait, are you sure you rang both beers through?” that we particularly notice the price.
Some examples of great value we’ve noticed in recent years include:
- £2.35 pints of Jaipur in a Wetherspoon pub
- the free pint of loyalty card Bass we got at The Crown
- bottles of Orval almost everywhere
- pristine Butcombe Bitter for £3 at The Whitehall Tavern
- fresh Augustiner Helles at c.£3 for 500ml here in Varna
- 99p pints of Ruddles Best at another Wetherspoon pub
- bottles of Sternburg for one Euro from Berlin kiosks
- £5 pints of Pilsner Urquell at The Llandoger Trow
Where it gets interesting, we think, is the value we place on the venue. the location, and the quality of the experience.
Those 99p pints of Ruddles Best were actually good. Jess wouldn’t have stayed in the otherwise fairly dingy pub and ordered several more otherwise. If they’d been £3 a pint, would they have been so attractive?
What about the same beer in a much nicer pub at £3 a pint? That would perhaps still feel like a bargain.
If we’re drinking one of the world’s great beers in one of the world’s great drinking venues and the price per pint is 30% higher than we’d normally expect… well, that’s probably still good value.
The point is, we think, that it’s always a multi-directional equation, involving quality, price, location, urgency, occasion, and convenience:
- mediocre beer + urgent thirst + low price + good location = value
- great beer + urgent thirst + high price + great location = value
- great beer + nearby + low price + mediocre location = value
- good beer + very low price + mediocre location = value
Where do ethics and values, plural, come into this? We’re fortunate that, much as we like a bargain, we can choose what and where to drink based on factors other than price.
So, we might choose to buy interesting beer from a brewery we think is adding something worthwhile to the local scene, even if that means paying a bit more, and having to sit in a draughty taproom.
It gives us food for thought and feels like making a contribution to the community. And so, in a different way, is still good value.
Of the bullet list above, though, only the first item excludes great beer. We do find it hard to consider most instances great value if the beer is not, in itself, enjoyable to drink.
One final thought is around the perception of what beer ‘ought’ to cost.
Up to a certain point, we seem to be able to accept inflation, and that pints get more expensive every year. Until, at a certain point, the price rises begin to seem more sudden and shocking.
We’re entering that phase now and catch ourselves saying “How much!?” quite often, before remembering that, no, actually, that is just the price of beer now.
If you’ve got it fixed in your head that pints ought to cost about £2, nothing can ever have seemed like good value to you after about 2003.
