News

On-trade drinks sales soar during windfall weekend

22 March 2023 By Louis Thomas

With St. Patrick’s Day, the final games of the Six Nations and Mother’s Day all taking place within a three-day period, pubs experienced a boom in drinks sales, according to research from Oxford Partnership.

St. Patrick’s Day on Friday 17 March proved to be the biggest day of the weekend with the average pub selling 427 pints. Thanks to a spike in interest in Guinness, stout sales were especially high, with 2.7 million pints (approximately £13m worth) sold – a figure reportedly 1,000,000 pints higher than on St. Patrick’s Day last year.

After that, the ‘Super Saturday’ of Six Nations fixtures saw 13.1 million pints of beer and cider sold, according to the data – an extra 65 pints per pub compared to an average weekend. Among the home nations, Scottish pubs, unlike Scotland’s rugby team, topped the tables, selling an average of 110 pints more than during an average weekend. English and Welsh pubs traipsed behind with 59 and 55 extra pints respectively.

After that, Mother’s Day capped off a strong weekend for the on-trade. Sales were up 21.7% on those of Mother’s Day 2022.

All in all, the average pub sold 1,051 pints over the three days, equating to about £4,256 in revenue. An average of 206 extra pints, equating to about £834 in cashflow, were sold during this three-day period.

While stout enjoyed a boost around St. Patrick’s Day, experiencing a 6.8% rise in sales compared to an average Friday, Saturday and Sunday, lager still dominated with a 48% category share of draught sales, compared to a more modest 18% share for stout and 8% for cider.