While the ONS has added hummus and dog grooming to its sample shopping basket in a bid to move with the times when tracking inflation – City AM prefers a cooler metric: the Guinness Index.
Nothing encapsulates British consumer habits like Guinness’ meteoric rise: taking stout from the preserve of grey-haired aficionados to an ever-present staple for the country’s young professionals.
One in every nine pints poured in Britain was a Guinness in August last year, and this share has likely grown since then.
Not only is Guinness’ brand recognition second to none in the UK, but its availability in almost every pub in the capital – apart from Samuel Smith, intent on forging its own path – makes it a handy tracker of how inflation is falling unevenly across London.
The average price of a pint of the black stuff in London is £5.45, according to City AM’s analysis of more than 100 pubs across every London borough.
Cost of Guinness up 11 per cent
The cost of Guinness has risen by more than 11 per cent since 2024, when the average price of a pint was £5.17.
Stout superfans in London’s more up-market boroughs could face a £2 premium on the average price for a Guinness, with the dark brew costing as much as £7.62 in Kensington and Chelsea and £7.19 in the City of London.
Bargains can be found, though, with the average price dipping below a fiver in Newham (£4.58), Barking (£4.75) and Brent (£4.90).
As Guinness quickly becomes the country’s most beloved beer, costs have risen by more than a pound in multiple boroughs, in the space of only two years.
The average cost of a pint rose by £1.71 (37 per cent) in Barnet and £1.19 (27 per cent) in Haringey between 2024 and 2026.
None of London’s boroughs recorded a drop in the cost of Guinness, but its price inflated the slowest in Merton (up 18p), Wandsworth (25p) and Tower Hamlets (34p).
City AM has also analysed the change in a range of beer prices across London, finding that the average cost of a pint of any kind in the capital is £5.77.
As with Guinness, Kensington and the Square Mile were among the most costly boroughs for a pint, with averages of £7.75 and £7.30 – followed by £7.12 in Westminster.
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