Prices have really started to go up at all the pubs in the UAE…I just figured out that Guinness is now NT220 a pint in the little city where I live, an hour and a half from Dubai. Before the summer, it used to be less than NT160!!
I noticed the same trend at home in the US this past summer, and also in the UK. It’s all over the world I’m afraid… 
Can’t argue with you there Truant, but it’s all tax you know, not counting the 25% VAT that’s charged on just about everything in Sweden 
I dunno what anything costs back home now, but it was expensive when I lived there, even for a Swede.
And I’d rather have a good Cider any day over a nasty beer, no matter where the beer is from, but in all fairness, beer is better for baking 
Ummm where did you get the figure of NT100 per hour for workers in a pub? I know of plenty of places that pay more than that. Now the minimum wage for say a 7-11 worker is NT$95 but to get people they would actually want working and at the hours pubs need them etc etc. More like NT150 upwards. Then you need to add the cost of “lao jian bao” (labour insurance/retirement thing…). Then a BIG difference from places in the west. Do you notice that a lot of Taiwanese will buy one drink per night? Sure westerners tend to drink more but for most places the customer base is mostly local. For some like Carnegies they are no doubt paying a fortune in rent for a location which is needed to get a resonable part of their customer base. I don’t know what western country(s) you were comparing with but with current exchange rates I can think of more than one where it makes it seem not too expensive to drink here.
A few years ago, the staff at one of the most reputable, long-standing western pubs in Kaohsiung (don’t want to name names here!) told me that they were making NT70 an hour. I imagine it might be different in Taipei, but the cost of alcohol is pretty much the same in both cities.
In fact, I remember visiting Taipei and going to a really nice, large Irish pub there (can’t remember the name of it for the life of me-it was about 4 years ago). It was far nicer than anything in the south and the booze was cheaper. I was amazed.
That Irish pub’s been gone about a year. Belly up.
I think it’s the drinks per customer thing. It’s lower in Taiwan than Oz, the US, UK, Canada, etc. So, the margin has to be higher. You’ll notice at the real drinking places - hot pot or seafood restaurants - the beer prices are very low.
drinks per consumer: a good point, and one i had not considered before.
inelastic demand…
in Oz, the demand curve is completely around the other way, but it’s the high tax that gets you.
yep, it’s about $300nt for a pint of guiness i the tavern now. that’s over 5 quid. london is one of the most expensive places around and i’ve never paid 5 quid for a pint there.
i was in california a month or so ago and i spent more on a night on the beer in taipei last weekend than i did on nights out in L.A and san fran.
i guess we just need to make the taiwanese drink more
Go to one of these all-you-can-drink pubs (at an entrance of 500 -700 NTD) and vomit your longs out after 10 x 33 cl bottles of Taiwan beer. Cheap no?
10? pffft. Lightweight.
Yeah, but get paid stacks more cash in Engerlan.
S’all good; just don’t put yer credit card behind the bar…[/quote]
I make lots more money in Asia than I could in the UK - Thank you!
Also never put your credit card behind the bar you’ll leave it there and when you come back the next day someone else’s tab has invariably been added to your total. 
There was this pub in Tainan called the Edge that quickly ran itself into the ground even though they offered 80 NT beers. One of the (of several) problems was locations. It was located on the third floor, directly above a 7-11. It was located across the street from the National Cheng Kong University campus. So, the majority of the customers were cash-strapped college students. What a lot of them would do was to meet up with their friends in the pub and buy one or two drinks to make themselves legal. But they’d spend most of their boozing cash elsewhere. They’d pop down the elevator, pay 40 NT for a beer at the convenience store, and drink in front of the 7-11. Then they’d head back upstairs and maybe have another beer in the Edge. There would be this going back and forth between upstairs and downstairs all night.
Lesson: don’t locate your pub next to a convenience store that sells booze 2-3 times cheaper.
[quote=“Quentin”]There was this pub in Tainan called the Edge that quickly ran itself into the ground even though they offered 80 NT beers. One of the (of several) problems was locations. It was located on the third floor, directly above a 7-11. It was located across the street from the National Cheng Kong University campus. So, the majority of the customers were cash-strapped college students. What a lot of them would do was to meet up with their friends in the pub and buy one or two drinks to make themselves legal. But they’d spend most of their boozing cash elsewhere. They’d pop down the elevator, pay 40 NT for a beer at the convenience store, and drink in front of the 7-11. Then they’d head back upstairs and maybe have another beer in the Edge. There would be this going back and forth between upstairs and downstairs all night.
Lesson: don’t locate your pub next to a convenience store that sells booze 2-3 times cheaper.[/quote]
Off topic but how the hell does Starbucks survive with passants consuming 1 coffee while studying for 4 hours???
A better question is why is it so expensive for piss-poor swill liked canned crap hops, or watered down grog?
Captive market, I suppose.
I read that in inner city US crackheads used to congregate in McDonald’s. Crackheads exists on a diet of salt, fat and sugar and a packet of chips or a cup of coffee every couple of hours is enough to stop starvation, though not in the long term malnutrition. McDonalds management became concerned about this, they worked out that law abiding types might put put off by malnourished and zombie like crack addicts gazing vacantly into space, dieing of overdoses or begging chips and coffee from the other customers.
They apparently commissioned some research for crack head repellents. Loud classical music was tried, but didn’t seem to have any effect, in fact if anything the crackhead numbers increased. Security guards were expensive and counterproductive as once settled crackheads are fiercely territorial - they will fight to defend their table. The sight of burly security guards yelling at emaciated addicts and dragging them out of the restaurant apparently put the other customers off their burgers.
One thing they did notice was that crackheads will congregate in the dingier part of the restaurant so the suggested making the lights brighter. It turns out that picking just the right brightness will repel crackheads but not bother regular customers.
Staying off topic, MCdonalds in Kings Cross London has blue lights in the stalls in the gents - apparently it stops addicts finding their veins and injecting in there.
You can imagine the picture as wee jimmy clutching his happy meal toy wonders in to find another dead addict in the crapper…nasty
same blue lights in many, many public toilets in Oz. railway stations, parks, shopping centres even.
Every time I go back to England I’m honestly shocked at this sort of thing. It’s like the whole society has some sort of nasty disease. People living there just think it’s normal but it really isn’t - other countries with similar GDP/capita stats don’t seem to suffer from it.
One factor on-topic posters have yet to mention: a few years back in Hsin Chu the pub owners got together and said, “This is what we will charge for beer.” No one asked what would happen if they didn’t charge that price.
Strange isn’t it that pricing is fairly uniform despite differences in rent, staffing, service & other overhead variables.