The price of a pint of beer has risen by more than 70 per cent since the 2008 financial crash, exceeding £8 for the first time in London as pubs are hit by spiralling inflation.

The average price of a pint in Britain has risen from £2.30 in 2008 to £3.95 this year, according to new data from CGA, a hospitality industry tracker.

Pub companies have warned prices may rise even further as the cost of barley, a key ingredient of beer, is forced up by supply issues related to the war in Ukraine.

Pints would be 60p cheaper today if they had risen in price in line with average consumer prices from January 2008 to April 2022.

CGA tracks prices by regularly surveying more than 5,500 random bars and pubs of the 90,000 in the UK.

The most expensive pint in the country was above £8 for the first time in its research, reaching £8.06 on average in one London pub – which was not named.

The cheapest average pint was in a pub in Lancashire at £1.79.

Prices have been shooting up across the board in Britain as inflation stands at its highest point in decades. Food and energy prices have driven much of the 9 per cent spike in inflation.

The drinks industry has warned that beer will continue to rise in price this year due to the war in Ukraine.

Analysts at Bernstein said this week that the rising cost of barley, of which Ukraine accounts for 17 per cent of global exports, was a “big negative” for brewers, estimating that “a realistic worst case would see malting barley inflation of approximately 70 per cent”.

The latest CGA data shows that the average price of a pint was up more than 7 per cent since 2020.

Greene King, a chain operating around 2,700 pubs, said last month it was rising prices by 4.7p per pint on average while Marstons, the brewer, put up prices by around 8 per cent in March.