The 2025 survey was carried out on June 14th, and for the first time we attempted to cover the whole branch of 455 pubs! In total our 63 volunteers visited over 430 pubs in Norwich and the county area of the branch. I’ve broken down the analysis into Norwich and then total / county, so we can compare the Norwich figures to previous years.
Norwich
We found 265 different beers available, in a total of 466 beers on sale on handpump or gravity in 171 pubs surveyed. There were 106 pubs serving one or more real ales, approximately 2 in every 3. Many of the ‘non-real-ale’ venues are hotels or ‘night time’ bars.
The 2025 totals compare with 250 different beers in a total of 464 found in 2024.
The average price of a pint has risen to £4.68 from £4.50 in 2024 and £3.68 in 2019, a 6% and 24% increase respectively. The average strength of beer was unchanged at 4.3%, roughly £1.08 for every 1% ABV. The most expensive beer was £9 and the cheapest £1.79 – I’m sure you can guess where!
The average price of a pint of Guinness and the price of the cheapest keg lager came out at £5.87, compared to £5.60 in 2024 and £5.20 (£4.75) respectively, highlighting that real ale continues to be excellent value.
The most popular beers (with publicans at least!) were Adnams Ghost Ship, in 20 pubs (25 in 2024), followed by Greene King Abbot in 13 pubs (10), Sharp’s Doom Bar and Greene King IPA in 12 (17 and 10), with all others in 8 or fewer pubs.
The top local beers were Lacons Encore (in 8 pubs), Woodforde’s Wherry (7), Fat Cat Tom Cat and Wolf Golden Jackal (6)
The top five included a total of 65 pumps on the bar, down from 72 in 2024, and a significant drop from the 89 in 2022 showing a further increase in diversity. This is even more marked if we go back to 2013, where the top five (Wherry, Adnam’s Southwold, Doom Bar, Adnam’s Broadside and Woodforde’s Nelson’s Revenge) took 128 slots, and were all ‘brown’ bitters.
Total Branch, including Norwich
We found 389 different beers available, in a total of 1177 beers on sale on handpump or gravity in 444 pubs surveyed.
The average price of a pint was £4.73, slightly higher than the Norwich price, with the average strength of beer slightly lower at 4.2% – this is pretty much as expected given that many county pubs are food-led (so less price sensitive?) and tend not to stock higher ABV beers (drink driving!).
The average price of a pint of Guinness and the price of the cheapest keg lager came out at £5.76 and £5.04 respectively, both slightly lower than the Norwich price.
The most popular beers (with publicans at least!) were Woodforde’s Wherry, with a whopping 55 sightings in the county, making 62 overall! Adnams Ghost Ship, Greene King Abbot and Greene King IPA followed up with 58, 48 and 37 sightings respectively.
The top local beers were Lacons with three beers in the top 20, Woodforde’s and Moon Gazer (2) and Barsham, Wolf and Grain with one each. The top five included a total of 237 pumps on the bar.
Regional giants Greene King (125) and Adnams (99) had the most beers, but local breweries Woodforde’s (98), Lacons (79), Moon Gazer (74), and Wolf (48) took the next four places. Nationals Sharp’s and Timothy Taylor took seventh and eight places, with local breweries in the next six places.
Thanks to all the volunteers who selflessly visited all the pubs, Craig Harmer for organising the survey, and Ian Stamp and Graham Morris for helping enter all the data!