Sales of half-pints have risen by 27% in a year, according to payment company Square, as more drinkers – particularly Gen Z – choose the smaller measure over a full pint.
Freelance journalist Esme Gordon-Craig writes that she began ordering halves just over a year ago, after her sister asked for one during a lunch break. She found the 284ml serving cheaper and easier to carry through a crowded pub, and soon became “immediately intrigued in this 284ml lifestyle”.
Before that, she considered the half-pint “an almost anti-social drink, like wielding a sign that read: ‘I’ll be off in five’”. Yet she now counts herself among the growing number of drinkers opting for halves, and admits to ordering four half-pints instead of two whole ones to keep returning to the bar and chat to a bartender she found attractive.
Why Gen Z is choosing halves
Cost plays a major role, she argues, with her generation “being crushed, financially and emotionally, by the cost-of-living crisis, with soaring rent prices, mounting student debt, and unprecedented levels of unemployment”. In some London pubs, a pint now costs £10.
She also points to a more moderate relationship with alcohol among her peers. Recent data, she notes, shows that 74% of Gen Z who are at legal drinking age reported drinking in the past six months, up from 66% three years ago.
A stylish and practical choice
Beyond cost and moderation, the half-pint has other advantages, she says. Ordering one at the start of a date is “a necessary precaution” – if the date goes badly, she can finish it quickly and leave. She also finds the smaller measure more sophisticated, and cites the French House pub in Soho, which only serves beer and cider in half-pints.
She acknowledges the criticism that Gen Z is “generation boring”, but argues that ordering a half does not mean drinking less – it means engaging with pub culture more, with more time at the bar and more chances to bump into friends. As she puts it: “Ordering a half means you get that joy twice.”
