please empty your brain below

3p off a pint is announced as though we ought fall on our knees in gratitude (or we still lived in a world where a pint cost 30p and the weekly wage was £30), it's like saying we've reduced house prices by £100 or some other utterly pointless gesture.
I had my first pub visit to central London last Friday and went to a Sam Smiths pub in Soho. 3 pints for just shy of £20. I gather £7+ is the standard in most of the West End.
I thought Tescos picked the online orders off the supermarket shelves, which suggests your Becks ought to be available in the shop.

In my local, a nice pub in an affluent village, pints are under £4.
Lager is more expensive - I had a pint of bitter in Soho last night for £5.05. £6+ is to be expected if you go somewhere next to the river.
Going to go and have a lie down now I've read about six pound pints.
Did you query the price? I'm suprised how often when I do that in pubs I don't usually bother with I'm then told a different price.
What about that beer that James Bond drinks? He seems to have had a bottle or two in most of the recent films, must be good I guess.
'Wetherspoons is not often the venue of choice when drinking with a discerning or morally-cognisant audience.'

You nailed it DG, priceless!
Someone in the pic appears to be drinking neck oil (the glass nearest the camera) which I commend as an excellent low gas, easy drinking pint. I realise I have broken your rule of no suggestions and particularly no draught suggestions but for anyone else interested I have found it a good alternative to overly gassy lagers.
I stopped drinking alcohol 8 years ago. Personal choice. I do sometimes like to drink the alcohol free (yes, I’m aware that some do contain minuscule amounts of alcohol) beers.

As you’ve mentioned Wetherspoons and Becks Blue, I’ll just mention that they charge around £1.79 - £2.49 for a bottle, depending on the location.

On a recent after-work social, in a backstreet pub (albeit in Kentish Town), I was charged £4.50 a bottle for an equivalent product. Although it’s cheaper than £6+ it’s still frustrating.

Back to the point in hand, I think pubs get away with charging what they like because they can. Considering too that dg’s bottle is smaller than a pint, (for example, Becks is sold in 275ml bottles) I think it’s often a case of ‘they saw you coming’.
I love a pub, always have. I instinctively don't like a Wetherspoons pub due to the way it (allegedly) exploits staff, the political pronouncements of it's idiotic owner, the general lack of cleanliness of the premises and - candidly - some of the patrons.
However, when meeting friends in central London for a "sesh" we find that all or part of a session needs to be spent in one of their premises for purely economic reasons. We can no longer afford our principles, which makes me sad.
Mmmm, hoppy mulch.

While I appreciate that real ale may be well beyond your comfort zone, it does disprove the 'all draft beer is gassy' hypothesis.
Tickle your taste buds DG. There has been a quiet revolution with beers, I'm referring to the pale beers now produced by most brewers. As generally a Logdropper/Mulch drinker these are tasty refreshing beers. For me more of a summer(y) quaffing.

But most decent hostelries will allow you to have a small sample (try before you buy). You may surprise yourself.
I have felt in the past that with guys there's an embarrassment factor (like not asking for directions) in case they are made to feel stupid in 'not knowing'. You can't be, there's literally thousands of beers out there now, no one can be an expert.

But typical DG; in describing your drinking scenario, to then leave us dangling, by not actually revealing what new said brew this is!

Oh, and lets start using the word 'tuppence' again. Two pence - nah!
I'm on painkillers that don't (or shouldn't) mix with alcohol, so I'm on fruit juice of some sort, which usually comes in half pints so I make one last all evening, and don't get involved in rounds.
I hadn't realised that the pints my friends drink now cost £6+ each, so an evening out can be quite expensive, but if they are enjoying themselves or recovering from a stressful day at work, why not.
This is usually in a central London pub, and my fruit juice costs £2.50-£3.
How will this affect The Count? I guess we’ll have to wait and see!
I know what you mean about the Spoons, which is a shame because I actually like being in them.

There is plenty of proper beer to be had at a better price. I like sniffing them out. Some you win, some not so much. It's all part of the fun. I don't consider a place with no non-gaseous on-tap a pub.
which is why I stick to coffee shops
Wow that is getting rather expensive, I guess most landlords are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I grew up in a pub; The world has changed a tad in the last 50 years. The scumbag now trying to develop my old homestead into hi-class dwellings commissioned a report from consultants detailing the impossibility of it ever reopening as a going concern. The crushing economic fundamentals are inarguable, but the price of a pint is incidental to these calculations. Coincidentally, low, Low!, LOW! supermarket beer prices have crippled our ability to value it elsewhere..

At entirely the other end of the beer/lager valuation scale, I recommend the blog SHUT UP ABOUT BARCLAY PERKINS.
Like Dave, I noticed that the replacement beer did not get a proper mention. It got tantalizingly close but then nope.

How can I be like DG if I don't know what beer he drinks?
In the cosy pub closest to my home I was astonished to order a pint of lime and soda last week to be told it was... FREE. "We don't charge for soda." I was floored and delighted.
Not sure about the beers, but change from a tenner for two is impossible, at least in London.
If you can overcome your feelings for Wetherspoons,they have just announced that a small range of alcoholic drinks - of which a bottle of Becks is one - will be on sale for 99p each during November at its English pubs (slightly higher prices apply in Scotland and Wales).

dg writes: see post (and link in post)
You'd get the whole round for 6 quid (on a Monday) in a Weatherspoons in Rochdale.
Here in merrie Mitcham a pint of locally (Reigate) brewed ale is £2.90 in the pub that used to be Wetherspoons, and very nice it is too. Being Real Ale there is no gas.
Sashima - Little known fact a pub has a legal obligation to serve water for nothing. That they gave you soda and lime is good , if I am skint I sometimes get a pint of soda water with ice in my local for free
Tim Martin lives, or at least used to live, close to my mum and could usually be found drinking in our excellent, traditional, local pub rather than the Wetherspoons he owned 10 minutes walk down the road.
I also remember when Sam Smith’s pubs were cheap for real ales, even in London. Times change, unfortunately.
kev - Tesco online in London is picked in dedicated sheds inaccessible to customers, and these carry much wider range than any store (with the possible exception of Tesco Brent Park near IKEA).

Sainsbury, Tesco, Waitrose, Amazon Fresh (and maybe Morrison's) also pick from sheds in London. Asda used to.

You are correct about shop shelf picking in the rest of the UK for everyone except Ocado, Amazon.
I interpret that pubs nowadays charge a lot for the "customer experience" something not necessarily what participants can provide themselves at home.
Gotta love a neck oil one of the only regular pints I drink now
'Not getting involved in rounds' is just wrong, unless your mates are considerably wealthier than you are, in which case they will pick yours up without mentioning it. Or you are drinking very briefly with people you will never drink with again.

Buying in rounds indicates reciprocity, trust and medium term commitment, but only if everyone participates.
I'm surprised no-one has yet commented that OMG PHOTO OF [PART OF] DG!!

It gave me such a frisson of excitement when I first saw this photo on Twitter.










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