£6.40 for a Guinness? Why Belfast pint prices are overtaking Dublin

WITH a pint of Guinness going for around £6.40 in Belfast city centre, Dublin’s reputation as the capital of pricey pubs is no longer assured.

While Dublin’s famous tourist trap of Temple Bar currently charges €9.95 (£8.42) for a Guinness, a ten-minute walk to Bowes Bar on Fleet Street lowers the price to €6.50 (£5.50), or Meaghers beside O’Connell bridge at €6 (£5.07).

In Belfast city centre, many of the household name pubs are now charging well over £6 for Guinness.

This includes the Dark Horse at £6.50 and student-favourite Lavery’s charging the same as the Bullitt Hotel at £6.40.

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The most photographed bar in Belfast, the Duke of York, is charging £6 while the nearby White’s Tavern and Cutter’s Wharf in Stranmillis charge £6.35.

According to the pinttracker.com website, which lists recent Guinness prices in the two cities, the average price for Guinness in Belfast evens out at £5.65, while Dublin is 90 pence cheaper at €5.62 (£4.75).

This lower price tag also sits alongside higher rates of pay for Dublin workers.

Last year, NISRA listed the average weekly pay for those working in Belfast as £700 a week. In Dublin, the Central Statistics Office stated the average weekly earnings were considerably higher at €1,233 (£1,042).

So why is the price of a pint higher in the smaller of the two cities?

Colin Neill from Hospitality Ulster said that high business rates were a major concern for publicans in Belfast.

“I think you have to compare like with like. Belfast city centre is like Temple Bar now,” he told the Irish News.

“But by the time you get to Castle Street in Belfast the prices are much cheaper.

“We’re also paying far higher business rates than in Dublin, we have the highest energy costs than anybody else.

“While our labour costs are not the same, when you convert them from euros they’re not that much further away now.

“A lot of people here are actually paid above the living wage as well. We also don’t have a lot of chains, most of our pubs in Belfast are independent.”

While glad more tourists were happy to pay the prices in Belfast pubs, he said the overall costs for traders were crippling.

“Brexit has obviously added to that. If you’re bringing products in from GB as well we have a whole customs thing to go through, so it’s quite a complex market now,” he said.

With relative stability restored at Stormont, he said addressing business rates was crucial.

“It’s well over time they did something about it, if you look at our counterparts in England – this is the second year they’ve seen a reduction in their business rate.

“That’s because the Westminster government knew there was challenges for hospitality.

“The Barnett Consequential money came to Northern Ireland, but it isn’t given to businesses to cut their rates.”

Financial headaches also apply to Dublin pubs, with a survey this month from the Licensed Vintners Association finding that one in three Dublin pubs (36%) will reduce their headcount if the minimum wage in the Republic increases further, with a fifth (21%) stating they would hire less staff.

Recommendations to increase the minimum wage to €13.70 (£11.59) by next year also saw nearly half of Dublin pubs (46%) admit it would force them to pass the costs on to customers.