Glass ceilings

One of the scary things about our current economic woes is the rapidly rising price of everyday items in our shopping baskets. One of those items (for me) is beer and it's of particular interest as I'm a keen craft beer drinker, it's one of my hobbies, there's nothing I enjoy more than geeking out over the latest new hop variety from the USA or yeast variant from the deepest darkest reaches of Hackney Wick. Many of the prices for ingredients of the humble pint are now climbing much faster than inflation, for example barley,  wheat, hops and other adjuncts, particularly those that need to be imported have all risen alarmingly in the last 12 month. Other related items such as the gas CO2, which is used to carbonate beer, have gone up a massive 3000% since this time last year. All of this means that pretty soon we're going to bust through the glass ceiling for the price of a pint. 

Typically the average pint would set you back around £4, obviously this varies from place to place in the country but it's a good marker, the ceiling for a pint in most places would therefore be around £5 beyond which most people would potentially feel uncomfortable (or ripped off). In big cities such as London these levels rise, pretty soon we'll be seeing £6-7 pints in larger towns and cities as the average goes up. 

In the case of craft beers things get even worse, the ingredients in this category are often much more expensive (exotic yeasts and hops etc.) and also used in much higher quantities (especially hops) the £6-7 a pint is quite normal for a craft-pint in London already, I wouldn't be surprised to see £10 pints becoming common for certain sought after brews, and fairly soon.

Anyway, I've concluded it's time I invested in some more industrial quality brewing equipment, my home brew set-up is OK but I lack a few important quality-focused items, for example water treatment, temperature controlled fermentation and kegging/canning, I reckon with an outlay of less than a grand I could make commercial quality brews for between £1-3 a pint (depending on the ingredients) With the current economic outlook, the DIY option might be the way to go for a year or two!