Diageo announced another price hike this week. Fifth one in three years. At this point they should just set up a direct debit and cut out the middleman.
Here’s what’s happening, what it means for Belfast drinkers, and where you can still get a pint without remortgaging.
The Damage
From 2 February, Diageo is raising the price of Guinness to publicans by 4p per pint in Northern Ireland. That doesn’t sound like much until you remember they did exactly the same thing in January 2025. And before that. And before that.
By the time VAT and the publican’s margin get added, that 4p becomes somewhere between 10-20p extra at the bar. Hospitality Ulster.. that’s the trade body representing pubs and restaurants in Northern Ireland.. has been warning for months about an “avalanche of price increases” from suppliers. Turns out they weren’t exaggerating.
Their Chief Executive Colin Neill called the Chancellor’s 1p reduction in draught duty last year an “insult.” To be fair, trying to offset multiple supplier price hikes with a single penny off duty is a bit like putting a plaster on a broken leg and calling it physio.
Belfast: Already Paying More
Here’s the thing that really stings.
Belfast is already paying about 90p more per pint than Dublin for the exact same liquid. According to Pinttracker, Dublin’s average Guinness price sits around €5.62. Belfast? Our price tracker shows the city centre average at £6.21.
Same brewery. Same tankers. Same recipe that’s been unchanged since your great-great-grandad was complaining about the price of a pint.
- Cathedral Quarter Average: £6.47
- Duke of York / Harp Bar: £6.50-£6.70
- The “Cheap” CQ Spots (Dirty Onion): £6.20
Kelly’s Cellars confirmed they’re at £5.60.. which the Irish News noted was itself a 20p increase in recent months. So even the “reasonable” prices have been creeping up.
Colin Neill from Hospitality Ulster explained the gap pretty bluntly: Belfast has higher business rates than Dublin, the highest energy costs in the UK, and most pubs are independents without the bulk-buying power of chains. “Belfast city centre is like Temple Bar now,” he told the Irish News.
But here’s the thing that doesn’t add up: Diageo is a £75 billion company. The Guinness is brewed in Dublin. Belfast is closer to St. James’s Gate than most of England. Tesco manages to charge the same price for milk in Inverness as they do in Brighton despite genuinely different logistics costs. Supermarkets figured out uniform national pricing decades ago.
The “transport and logistics” excuse falls apart when you look at a map. Belfast is 100 miles from Dublin. Runcorn.. where Diageo packages Guinness for GB.. is 170 miles from Dublin. The liquid travels further to reach most English pubs than it does to reach Belfast.
If Tesco can sell you a tin of beans for the same price in every corner of the UK, a £75 billion drinks company can figure out how to not charge Belfast 90p more per pint than Dublin. They just choose not to.
Why? Because switching to Murphy’s isn’t culturally realistic and everyone involved knows it. You can’t boycott your da’s drink. Diageo has the market power of a company selling water in a desert, except the desert is Northern Ireland and the water is stout and everyone’s been drinking it since 1759.
The Numbers Game
Hospitality Ulster’s analysis reckons a pub makes about 12p profit on a pint. Twelve pence. You’d make more margin driving your empties across the border to use Lidl’s deposit return machines.
I spoke to one independent publican in Belfast this week. They asked to stay anonymous, which tells you everything about the power dynamic here.
“I’m making 12p a pint on Guinness. Diageo just took 4p of that. A third of my margin, gone. And what am I supposed to do.. not stock Guinness? I’d lose half my customers by Friday.”
.. Belfast independent publican
Their most recent membership survey is grim reading:
- 43% of venues have reduced staff since April 2025
- 70% have cut employee hours
- Half are pessimistic about their own business over the next 12 months
Meanwhile, Diageo posted $2.5 billion in global net profits last year. Guinness 0.0 became the UK’s best-selling alcohol-free beer. The brand is so popular they had to limit Christmas supplies because demand outstripped production.
Business is booming. Publicans are making 12p a pint. And Belfast drinkers get another price hike for their trouble.
The pubs are squeezed. The drinkers are squeezed. The only people not being squeezed are the shareholders getting their dividend from a company that could absorb these costs without noticing and simply doesn’t fancy it.
Where The Value Actually Is
Right. Enough doom. Here’s the practical bit. If you’re willing to walk five minutes from Cathedral Quarter, the prices drop significantly.
| Venue | Location | Price | The Reality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bridge House | Bedford St | £4.39 | Wetherspoons pricing |
| 3 C’s Social Club | Tomb St | £4.40 | 4.7 Google rating. One of the city’s best. |
| Rose & Crown | Ormeau Rd | £4.50 | Solid traditional pub |
| Hercules Bar | Castle St | £5.00 | Hidden gem, 5 mins from CQ |
Let’s make that real. Say you’re a two-pints-twice-a-week person.. hardly a lifestyle that would concern your GP. At Duke of York prices (£6.50), that’s £26 a week. At Hercules (£5.00), it’s £20. At Three C’s (£4.40), it’s £17.60.
Over a year, that’s the difference between £1,352 at Cathedral Quarter prices and £915 at Three C’s. £437 saved. For drinking the exact same liquid, in the same city, often a five-minute walk apart. That’s a weekend away. That’s Christmas sorted. That’s a very nice dinner for two with wine and a taxi home and change left over.
Same pint. Same Belfast. Wildly different maths.
Kelly’s Cellars on Bank Street is £5.60.. still cheaper than anything in Cathedral Quarter and you get to drink in a building that’s been serving pints since 1720. The walls have seen things. Probably still owe a tab from the 1798 rebellion.
Hercules on Castle Street is £5.00 and a genuine hidden gem. Five minutes from CQ, proper pub atmosphere, and you’ll save £1.50 a pint compared to Duke of York. That’s a free pint for every four you buy. Maths I can get behind.
Three C’s on Tomb Street is £4.40 with a 4.7 Google rating. Genuinely one of my favourite bars in the city.. Cathedral Quarter postcode, nearly £2 less per pint, and the kind of place that reminds you what pubs felt like before everything got an Instagram strategy. More people should go. I’m almost reluctant to tell you about it, but that would defeat the purpose of this entire newsletter.
The Beamish Option: Sunflower serves Beamish instead of Guinness at £4.90.. making it the only budget stout option in Cathedral Quarter. It’s not Guinness, but it’s proper Irish stout and you’re saving £1.30+ per pint. Your taste buds will adapt. Your wallet will thank you.
What Happens Next
Honestly? Prices will probably keep going up. Diageo has raised prices five times in three years and there’s no indication they’re planning to stop. Colin Neill’s “avalanche” prediction is looking less like pessimism and more like forecasting.
But Belfast has options if you know where to look. The cheap pints exist.. they’re just not in the postcodes that get photographed for the tourism brochures.
Check our price tracker. Save the Hercules and Kelly’s Cellars and Three C’s locations to your phone. Accept that Cathedral Quarter is now “special occasion” territory unless you’ve recently won the lottery or lost your financial sense.
Every pint at an independent that hasn’t surrendered to tourist pricing is a small vote for a different version of Belfast. Probably won’t change Diageo’s quarterly earnings. But it’ll change yours.
And if all else fails, do what I did last week: confidently order “whatever’s cheapest” at the bar, realise too late it’s Rockshore, and drink it anyway while pretending you meant to do that.
Some lessons you have to learn the hard way.
Sources: Irish News, Hospitality Ulster, Pinttracker.com (Dublin prices), Cask Theory Belfast Price Tracker