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Wetherspoons to sell pints for 99p in ‘January Sale’

Value pub chain Wetherspoons will be holding a ‘January Sale’ across its 800 sites with some of its beers being priced at just 99p per pint.

Wetherspoon founder and chairman Tim Martin revealed to national press that his pubs will also be cutting the price of many of its menu items in venues across England and Wales next month, offering discounts and bargain prices between 3-17 January 2023. As part of the initiative, Wetherspoons pubs in Scotland will also be offered the discounts between 4-17 January 2023.

The discounts, which will vary from pub-to-pub, will include the price of a pint of Greene King’s Ruddles beer at just 99p across 560 pubs giving customers a roughly 45% discount. But in Scotland and Wales, the price will be £1.10 due to licensing laws.

Other discounted pints include Carlsberg, Bud Light, Guinness and Stowford Press Apple Cider and Dark Berry Cider, and Worthingtons. Wetherspoons’ ‘January Sale’ will also include Bell’s whisky, Gordon’s gin, Duppy White rum, and AU vodka.

Those who are taking part in Dry January can also benefit from the sale with low and non-alcohol drinks, including Beck’s Blue, Adnams Ghost Ship, Brewdog Punk AF, Heineken 0.0, Koppaberg and Erdinger.

Martin has also revealed that Wetherspoons will also be cutting the price of coffee and soft drinks across 810 pubs to just 99p and that his ‘January Sale’ will also cover food with the 640 Wetherspoon venues pricing breakfast porridge at £1.49, a breakfast muffin at £1.99 and a breakfast wrap at £2.49. Additionally, he has confirmed that his Wetherspoon’s 3oz burger meal served with chips and a soft drink will cost just £4.49.

Speaking of his decision, Martin said: “Department stores and shops hold their sales in January, so it is the perfect time to have a sale in the pub too. The range of drinks and food on sale in the pub is aimed at suiting a wide variety of tastes. This year we have included our biggest selection of low and non-alcoholic drinks. I believe that the January Sale will prove popular with our customers.”

Martin was recently slammed for devaluing beer during this year’s cask seminar hosted in September where he presented how he chose to reduce drinks prices across his chains without offering any differentiation in pricing for items regardless of calibre, brewery, style or quality.

When questioned as to whether he had considered that Wetherspoons was responsible for devaluing the image of beer, Martin admitted: “I suppose we are in a way” and stated that beer in his pubs was “cheaper”.

During a time when many independent craft breweries are being forced to close due to rising costs, multinational pub chains such as Wetherspoons slashing prices for consumers is considered by those in the industry as an aggressive move on small businesses trying to stay afloat and make a living.

For independent pubs, retailers and brewers that cannot compete on such prices, the goliaths of the industry are, according to sources, being “squeezed out of a livelihood by people like Martin who will always walk away looking like the everyman’s hero for making pints cheaper, but never think of the knock on effect on the rest of the sector around him”.

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