Tiers for Beers

A popular statistic overstates the case for deferred pub drinking.

The financial organisation Company Debt claimed:

Every adult in the UK will have to order 124 pints of beer this year to bring pubs back to their pre-COVID levels.

Headlines repeated that number, in the Daily Mirror, Metro, Evening Standard, and elsewhere.

As a whole, the food and accommodation services industry fell by around 43% from 2019 to 2020. The impact of the pandemic remains stark:

Accommodation and food services were hardest hit in services, in the second quarter of 2020. (Image: ONS)

How did they calculate the ‘124 pints’ figure?

The calculation goes as follows:

• “Latest estimates suggesting that the UK’s food and beverage industry lost at least £25.66 billion due to COVID-19”. Their article does not give a primary source for this estimate. The two stated sources are Morning Advertiser (a pub trade magazine) and Statista.
• The estimated loss from the “food and beverage industry” is then applied only to pubs. Pubs are a major part of this industry, but not its whole.
• The analysts divides estimated loss by the population estimate of UK adults. The company claims Eurostat has the figure at 52m. For January 2019, the Eurostat estimate is 52.6m. The Office for National…