How much does a beer cost? Seems like a straightforward question, and Rs. 140 is printed on the bottle (the big one, the Lion Larger if you will), but it’s not. A beer at a dodgy bar will cost about Rs. 190 whereas a beer at a posher restaurant will be about Rs. 450. Go to a nightclub and a small Lion is like Rs. 600, meaning getting 675 ml worth would cost you over 1,000 Rupees. It’s something I’ve always been subtly aware of but never thought about, till now.
We finally just sat down and called 21 places to find out what a Lion costs. You can see the full results here. If you’re looking for quick takeaways, Park Street Mews (Rs. 250) and Barefoot (Rs. 300) have the cheapest beer in the best settings. Amuseum (a nightclub) has prices that work out to about Rs. 1,100, all of this before tax. When you add in tax (13%) and service (10%) prices go up by 23%. So you can easily and often end up paying Rs. 500 for a 140 Rupee beer.
That’s the beer index, or the Lion Index as we call it. Would be interesting to peg it to locations or rents or whatever. So far the basic correlation is that if you go to posh places they will charge you more. Which I suppose is not a surprise. It’s just interesting to see the numbers.
I don’t recall a beer costing over Rs. 1,000 at Amuseum. And if it really did, then it should be a crime.
Where is “The Station”? and “New Colonial”?
Wrong Info: at O! lion is priced at Rs. 140 + 10% service charge + 12% vat = 172.48
We calculated the price per 625 ml (a big bottle) so we could compare different places.
At O! they don’t sell the big bottles. They sell draft cups and pitchers, towers, etc. 330 ml of Lion is priced at Rs. 185. From that we calculate that it costs about Rs. 350 for 625 ml.
It’s not the price per whatever they serve, it’s the price per 625 ml. Otherwise how to compare.