Oh to be in Scotland for the beer

by Shayna Glick, Posted Feb 14th 2008 @ 10:02AM

Ah, Scotland. The beautiful landscape. The deep lochs. The cheap beer!

That's right. Beer in Scotland is so inexpensive that it costs less than bottled water and soda. At least in the supermarkets. It's still more expensive in the pubs.

The price of beer in Scottish supermarkets has been trending down for quite some time. The reason is competition. More supermarkets are selling beer as compared to many years ago. And more recently, people want to drink at home since the smoking bans went into effect. The combination of more competition and higher volume of sales has driven down the prices.

Oh yeah. I know that getting alcohol from the supermarkets and liquor stores anywhere is cheaper than the bars, but when do I get beer cheaper than water? Surely it has to happen soon, at least where smoking bans are in effect. Maybe if we all buy more beer at once, and keep it up, we can make it happen. It'll be a group effort. Beer drinkers unite!

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Filed Under: Drink Recipes
Tags: beer, british isles, Scotland

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-14-2008 @10:51AM Alex said... You might be disappointed ... here in England (and I suspect Scottish supermarkets are going the same way) the beer that is really cheap tends to either be the own brand stuff or, um, the cheap and nasty stuff.

While it's still cheaper than in a bar, the really good beers (the Czech Budweiser, locally produced ales etc) still are more pricey than water or fizzy pop.
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2-14-2008 @11:03AM Andy said... You're not going to get beer cheaper than water any time soon in the states. With hop and barley prices shooting up, prices are going to rise if anything. Also anything imported is going to take a hit because of the weak dollar.
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2-14-2008 @3:21PM beanspants said... There's plenty of beer that's cheaper than water in the US. a 40 of OE is only $1, while a 20 of Dr Pepper is a buck twenty five.

Also a 20 of bud light bottles is $15, while a sixer of Coke cans is $3.00. That's pretty darned close, and the difference is probably mostly equal to the premium of glass over aluminum.

I'm not sure how much Coke bottles or Bud Light cans cost to compare.

Of course craft beers are more costly, but so is bottled water and craft soda.

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2-15-2008 @9:48AM ricky lake said... lol? what is "craft soda"?
There are 500 different brands of beers and 50 different brands of water. If you want to compare Pabst Blue Ribbon prices to Voss Water, I can guarantee you the beer is cheaper. Hell, a sixpack of Pabst would be cheaper than one bottle of Voss.
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2-16-2008 @11:46AM Robin said... Yeah I live in Glasgow, and I've seen the dead cheap own-brand beer in supermarkets for 36p a can - cheaper than name-brand water but not the own-brand stuff which is like 19p a liter.

Who, other than jakies hanging around the bus stop, would drink 36p lager? Gross. I'll pay the extra quid for a polish or czech lager, thanks.
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2-19-2008 @3:15PM stirfriednoodles said... i hate to gloat but i'm lucky that hubby and i have now been living in Germany (from the US) - so beer here is cheaper than water and soda, anywhere. we're lucky enough that Belgium and Czech Rep are not a far drive from us. and, yes, we frequent CZ.

by the way... this will be the first year for a "smoke-free" Oktoberfest! (20Sept - 05Oct)

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