Dude, where’s my beer?

Here is bad news for those who chill out at watering holes in the city. Most of the distilleries have increased the price of draught beer, the lifeline of pubs, by more than Rs400 per 50 litres. Though the pubs are yet to effect the hike in price, the day is not far when you will have to spend extra money for draught beer.

Currently, there is no shortage of draught beer at most of the pubs as distilleries restored the supply by Friday evening. “It was true that there was confusion over the price. Anticipating the price hike and delay in supply of draught beer, many pubs had made arrangements to have enough stock of draught beer to meet the demand,” said an employee of Pyro Pub on Church Street.
It was the same story at a few other pubs on Brigade Road. “I expected some problem to be there at the end of the financial year,” said Santosh TR, Manager of Le Rock Pub Cafe.

It was reported that some pubs had put up ‘No Stock’ boards to sell the draught beer at a premium. “We had to put up ‘No Stock’ board on Thursday. Now, we have received a few cans of draught beer and we have no problem to serve our customers,’’ said an employee of Ruby’s on Church Street.

The price of draught beer per pitcher varies from one pub to the other, depending on the facilities and atmosphere at each pub. For example, a pitcher of beer costs `310 at Coco Groove on Church Street while it is priced at `225 at Pyro and `625 at Rubin’s.
“We are not bothered about the price, but the atmosphere to chill out. However, there are some pubs that exploit customers,’’ says Thomas Abraham, a software engineer.

The confusion over the new tariff, which came into effect from April 1, was cited as the reason for delay/disruption in the supply of draught beer by distilleries. Most customers were forced to be content with bottled beer because of shortage of draught beer. “We had ordered a pitcher but we had to do with bottled beer, as we were told that there was no draught beer,” said a software engineer at a pub.

“Pubs like Downtown Pub and Pecos had cancelled Happy Hours and a pitcher of beer was priced at `350,” said Michael James Noah, a student.

Meanwhile, pubs made arrangements to get draught beer from other outlets in Jayanagar, Malleswaram and Rajajinagar. “We faced problems for half a day as we were running short of supply, but we did not incur any loss as we managed to get beer from our other four outlets,” said Paul Raj, manager of Mojos on Brigade Road.

(Inputs from Maitreyi Joshiand Anushka Sivakumar)