The Last Place You’d Want to Have a Pilsner Urquell
From the Trip to Brussels file: Prague Airport’s Terminal 2 is the spot for flights to Schengen countries, which are unified by an agreement on border controls and common immigration policies. In a way, this means that these countries have a commonality of culture as well. It’s unlikely, for example, that any of the 25 Schengen countries would be places where Pilsner Urquell might be really hard to find.
Which is what makes the pricing at Porto Café and Shorty’s Pub so annoying. The bar and restaurant inside Prague Airport’s Terminal 2 sell Pilsner Urquell as if it were hand-made in small batches on a remote mountaintop by Alpine virgins: a budget-busting 150 Kč per half-liter, or the equivalent of €6.25 or $9.65 per glass at today’s rates. (A high price in Prague for Pilsner Urquell is anything over 37 Kč, or about $2.40.) They don’t even offer to rub your back afterwards.
Oh, but there’s more.
Remember the Simpsons episode with the rotating Duff billboard? The one that promotes responsible drinking with the scene of a car crash on one side, then switches to say something like “Anytime is the Right Time for a Duff!” on the other? This is pretty close:
Yes, this is an airport bar. Consequently I realize that, at least in this case, “the road” really means “the air,” and that it’s unlikely that anyone stopping in here for a few $10 pints is going to climb into a car directly afterwards. But it is exactly the kind of marketing that would give MADD the conniptions.
Porto Café is fairly unique in that they don’t charge extra for the wonderful amber Master lager: most places knock it up a few coins over the price of Pilsner Urquell. Here it’s also 150 Kč, though of course for just a .4-liter glass.
(A note: Last month I had two great glasses of Master, both the amber and the 18° dark, in a medium-size town in Southern Bohemia. They were 28 Kč each.)
(A further note: The wholesale price of of a half-liter of Pilsner Urquell is about 18.90 if you buy it by the keg from someone like Pivní Maják. That means that Porto Café is charging almost 8 times the wholesale price, or in other words, pulling a gross margin of 131 Kč out of every 150-Kč glass.)
(A final note: The amber Master has the same wholesale price per liter at Pivní Maják, meaning the bar’s margin on a smaller portion of .4 liters is even more.)
Is this the most expensive airport beer in the world? Or is this the airport bar with the greatest disparity to actual local prices?
Who has paid more for less?
Tags: amber, marketing, Master, Pilsner Urquell, prices
, writes about beer and brewing in the Czech lands and around Europe.
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August 7th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Once I was offered a Sierra Nevada pale ale for $7.99 in a Canadian beer bar menu when I could buy a six-pack for $5.99 in a grocery store 45 minutes from my house in northern NY. I declined the offer a the bar.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
That almost makes sense — grocery store beers are almost always cheaper. Well, no — $7.99 for a single brew? The place must have amazing ambiance.
I believe my friend Michael once drank a beer in the Hong Kong airport only to find out it cost $15, but that will have to be corroborated…
August 8th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Once we went on a stag night with some friends to Goldfingers, a pretty posh strip bar in Prague (one of my mates had free tickets, his wife worked at a hotel and she got them for us, isn’t that awesome?) a 0.33cl bottle of Pilsner Urquell was 160CZK, and this was five years ago. I think I ordered a cup of coffee that had a much more reasonable price.
I guess at a place like that it makes sense, they must not want people getting pissed on cheap beer and then causing trouble. Of course there might be some that still get pissed, but at least they would have to pay a lot of money for that.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Ah, but a strip club is different, Max. A strip club offers something that Porto Café doesn’t have — strippers.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:40 am
I know, and that is why I bring Goldfingers up, at least they have something to justfity the high prices, boobs (and more), I don’t think you can see much of that at Porto Café.
August 9th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Actually, it was a $12 Bass Ale in Hong Kong’s airport. But this was a few years back, so it’s probably $15 by now. I live in Vietnam, where the alcohol import duty is 100%. Pilsner Urquell is about $6 in a bar here, when you can find it. We don’t even have strip clubs, not technically anyway
August 14th, 2008 at 8:42 am
My plane was delayed from Prague airport when I was there, so I got to try the Master as well.
Both food and drink tend to be expensive in airports all over Europe, but I think the price gap is probably bigger in Prague than elsewhere.
The airports in Germany tend to have more decent beer prices, though those who sell beer to take away tend to charge twice the price in an ordinary shop.
You want free beer in airports? Get a Diners Club credit card, and you get access to their lounges.