St Patrick’s Day trumps final Six Nations weekend

St Patrick’s Day proved to be the biggest day of last week with an average pub selling 427 pints on one of the biggest days of 2023, according to insights analyst Oxford Partnership. 

Its research also found 2.7m pints of stout were sold in pubs across the UK with more than 1m more pints dispensed than in 2022. This alone drove £13m in stout sales in the on-trade and made St Patrick’s Day, on Friday 17 March, the biggest sales day of the year to date.

Rugby boosts sales

Rugby continued to provide cheer to the hospitality sector as sales grew by 20% as the Six Nations continued into its fifth and final round with Ireland winning the grand slam and, despite Italy giving their best showing for year, they picked up the wooden spoon again.

A whopping 13.1m pints were sold with the average pub serving 389 pints of draught beer and cider on Saturday (18 March), the final day of the competition, equating to a £1,575 income generator. This meant that 65 extra pints of draught beer or cider were sold per pub versus an average weekend.

The thirstiest rugby fans were Scotland with an uplift of 110 pints sold, followed by England up by 59 pints and Wales selling an extra 55 pints per site.

Mums help out

Mother’s Day continued the trend of super sales in the on-trade when 7.9m pints of draught beer and cider were sold in UK pubs, a huge 21.7% increase in pints sold against 2022 and  representing 22% of the three days beer and cider sales. This drove £32m in draught beer and cider sales across the UK on-trade.

Oxford Partnership CEO Alison Jordan said: “A fantastic result for the on-trade and exactly what the hospitality sector needs – here’s hoping the Easter and coronation weekends will show equally strong results.”