If your bank account has taken a beating after a big weekend on the sauce, this story will make you feel a little better. An Australian man has paid £55,000 (AU$100,000) for one drink during a trip to the UK, claiming it as the ‘world’s most expensive beer‘. Let’s hope it hit the spot.
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Image: PA
We’ve all experienced the anxiety of checking our expenditures after a night out and seeing the ungodly sums of money spent on booze. So you can imagine how Peter Lalor must’ve felt when he saw AU$99,983.64 no longer in his account. Unlike the self-inflicted financial damage most of us create at the pub, this particular transaction was the result of a mistake made by the bartender at a Machester brand of the Malmaison. Lalor, a cricket writer, had been staying at the hotel ahead of a match back in 2019 and bought a Deuchers IPA at the bar, just one glass of beer which was supposed to cost £5.50. However, alarm bells started to go off when he went to pay.
Taking to Twitter at the time, Lalor wrote: “I didn’t have my reading glasses when she presented me with a bill for the beer and when she had some problems with the machine I didn’t think much of it, but it was eventually resolved. I said I didn’t want a receipt and she went to leave. Something, however, made me ask: ‘How much did I just pay for that beer?'”
“She checked, covered her mouth, started to giggle and refused to tell me, saying only there had been a mistake and she would fix it. She kept giggling, I told her it needed to be fixed and fixed right now. She ran to get her manager who took the situation far more seriously and went about attempting to arrange a refund. She told me somebody would be in contact.”
When nobody made contact, Lalor checked his account and saw the gut-wrenching bill. On a side note, how much coin do cricket writers make for a AU$100,000 transaction to go through? Good for you, Lalor.
Image: PA
A manager eventually arrived and dealt with the mistake, but the customer still had to wait days for his refund after the incident in 2019.
He added: “She told me somebody would be in contact. Three days later I’m still waiting.”
The AU$2,499.59 service charge, Pete said, was refunded immediately, but repayment for the hugely expensive beer took longer to arrive.
He added: “It really is baffling that both Visa and our bank would allow such an amount to go through unquestioned. And, guess what? They agree that there is a refund in the system but it will take nine working days for it to go through.”
“In the meantime there’s a massive hole in my finances. Lesson to be learned: always find your glasses when presented with a bill.”
In trying to retrieve his lost funds, the writer said the hotel had been ‘very helpful’ after he tweeted about the matter. A Malmaison spokesperson told PA news agency: “We are currently carrying out an investigation into what took place. We have been in contact with Peter to apologise and ensure this has been resolved as quickly as possible.”
In typical Aussie fashion, Lalor saw the comical side, adding on Twitter: “It’s a good beer. The original version of it won a heap of awards, including the Supreme Champion Beer of Britain. But if you are thinking that no beer is worth the best part of 100,000 dollars, then I am inclined to agree with you.
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