At an eye-watering £80.15 per pint, a stylish London pub is offering what is thought to be Britain’s most expensive beer.
The costly drink, which is served in a boozer in Brixton, South London, is an import from the United States.
The Craft Beer Co chain has received Reforged 20th Anniversary Ale from a ‘artisanal’ microbrewery in San Diego, California, for £105 per 750 ml bottle (about 1.3 pints).
Tipplers who purchase a bottle of the exceptionally strong drink to consume at home will receive a one-third discount.
The beer has a dark brown color and a thick, syrupy mouthfeel, with an ABV of 11%. It spends 18 months in a bourbon barrel.
Roasted malts and hops, as well as coffee, chocolate, vanilla, caramel, and barley wine, are all included in this sour brew.
Speedway Stout, which sold on tap for £22.50 at the same pub chain in 2018, Wee Heavy, and Old Numbskull are a fusion of three different beers manufactured by the same firm.
However, the beer has yet to make an impression on the pub’s hipster audience.
So far, only one bottle of the sought-after Californian brew has been sold, to a group of six men who reportedly ‘really enjoyed it.’
The hefty price tag connected to the beer has shocked the pub’s patrons, who argue that the beer isn’t excellent enough to be worth the price.
Even beer fanatic Ben O’Neill, 22, who manages The Needle and Pin pub in Loughborough, said he wouldn’t pay that much for a single bottle of beer.
Ben, whose favorite ale is Speedway Stout, was underwhelmed by the £105 per bottle brew.
He said: ‘Compared to most other Imperial stouts it is a bit on the thin side.
‘I would not pay £70 for a pint of that.
‘It has a tiny bit of smoke and oak on the back of the palette.
‘I pretty much drink anything, but my favourite is Speedway Stout.
‘Without the price I would rate this as an 8.2 out of 10. With the price factored in it is more like a four out of ten.
‘I would definitely expect more from something that is so expensive.
‘The most I would pay is £45 for a pint.’
His pal Chris Anagnostopoulos, 27, a software engineer from Bath, said of the £105-a-bottle booze: ‘It surprisingly light, it tastes of leather with a hint of chocolate.
‘It is a good beer, but I would not pay that much for it.
‘It does grow on you, but I would not pay that much for it even to have it once.’
Elliott Clark, a 26-year-old banker from Brixton, said: ‘It is not what I want from a beer.
‘It is very syrupy and the taste is quite overwhelming.
‘It is not something I would want to drink a pint of.
‘If it was a shot or a cocktail, yes. I like a taste of it.
‘It is more like a winter beer, maybe it would be nice in a warm cosy pub in winter.
‘I would not pay to buy that. I have spent a couple of hundred pounds on a bottle of wine before but I would not buy that.’
His friend, Dan Jones, 25, an assistant radio producer from Clapham, south London, said: ‘It has got a coffee taste and you can really taste the alcohol in that.
‘It tastes like a mixture of liquorice, coffee and alcohol.
‘A pint of that would really sit in your stomach for a long time.
‘I didn’t think it was a beer when I first looked at it.
‘I don’t dislike the taste, it is really intense and rich, but there is no chance I would pay that much for it.
‘I would maybe pay £8 for it and that is accounting for the alcohol percentage.’
Hospitality worker Agata Chudziak, 27, from Bristol who was visiting the capital for a gig at the O2 Academy Brixton, said: ‘It is tasty, but I would pay no more than £8 for it- not £70, you just can’t.
‘I like wheat beer and pales.
‘I would pay as much as £12 for a half of an eight per cent beer.
‘You would never pay as much as they are asking.’
Jacob Evans, 29, a carpenter who is also from Bristol, said: ‘What I would pay depends on what it is.
‘A lot of these beers are like wine, they are aged in stupid expensive barrels and people will pay stupid amounts of money for them.
‘People pay a lot of money for these beers but I would never pay that much for it.
‘It tastes like a strong stout.
‘When the weather is so warm you just want a lager.’
The pub’s general manager, Andrew Barton, said: ‘We have only ever sold one before to a group of six guys who absolutely loved it.
‘They really loved the sourness they got from it, combined with the sweetness of the bourbon.’
The Brixton pub’s next most expensive tipple is another American ale called the ‘Brewery Out of the Lunch Box’, which is cheap by comparison at £45 for a 750ml bottle.
Andrew added: ‘We like to highlight the different breweries around the world and selling these sorts of beers has given people the opportunity to try things they would never have tried before.
‘People will have heard about a beer on the internet or social media and they come to us to get the chance to try it.
‘We campaign for small craft breweries and we try to help them by buying them.
‘We understand the cost of living at the moment is very expensive.
‘With the beers we have on tap, we try to make craft beer very accessible and we try to be cheaper than other pubs nearby – we sell one IPA for £6.50 when they sell it for more than £7.
‘It is not all about charging people these crazy prices.
‘We charge what we charge because the cost of a keg is very expensive.
‘We could raise our prices further, but we want to make this accessible for people.’
The Brixton bar’s most expensive beer on tap costs £11.