THE BEER TOKEN
2025-09-04
1979
The novelisation of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy came out in 1979,
just a smidge before I was born. There's a well-known scene in the second
chapter featuring Ford Prefect, an alien living on Earth, distracting his
human friend Arthur Dent. Arthur is concerned about the imminent demolition of
his house by a wrecking crew, and Ford takes him to the pub to get him drunk,
in anticipation of the pair attempting to hitch a lift on an orbiting
spacecraft that's about to destroy the planet:
>
> "Six pints of bitter," said Ford Prefect to the barman of the Horse and
Groom. "And quickly please, the world's about to end."
> The barman of the Horse and Groom didn't deserve this sort of treatment, he
was a dignified old man. He pushed his glasses up his nose and blinked at Ford
Prefect. Ford ignored him and stared out of the window, so the barman looked
instead at Arthur who shrugged helplessly and said nothing.
> So the barman said, "Oh yes sir? Nice weather for it," and started pulling
pints.
> He tried again.
> "Going to watch the match this afternoon then?"
> Ford glanced round at him.
> "No, no point," he said, and looked back out of the window.
> "What's that, foregone conclusion then you reckon sir?" said the barman.
"Arsenal without a chance?"
> "No, no," said Ford, "it's just that the world's about to end."
> "Oh yes sir, so you said," said the barman, looking over his glasses this
time at Arthur. "Lucky escape for Arsenal if it did."
> Ford looked back at him, genuinely surprised.
> "No, not really," he said. He frowned.
> The barman breathed in heavily. "There you are sir, six pints," he said.
> Arthur smiled at him wanly and shrugged again. He turned and smiled wanly at
the rest of the pub just in case any of them had heard what was going on.
> None of them had, and none of them could understand what he was smiling at
them for.
> A man sitting next to Ford at the bar looked at the two men, looked at the
six pints, did a swift burst of mental arithmetic, arrived at an answer he
liked and grinned a stupid hopeful grin at them.
> "Get off," said Ford, "They're ours," giving him a look that would have an
Algolian Suntiger get on with what it was doing.
> Ford slapped a five-pound note on the bar. He said, "Keep the change."
> "What, from a fiver? Thank you sir."
There's a few great jokes there, but I'm interested in the final line. Ford
buys six pints of bitter, pays with a five-pound note, and says "keep the
change", which surprises the barman. Presumably this is as a result of Ford's
perceived generosity... though of course what's really happening is that Ford
has no use for Earth money any longer; this point is hammered home for the
barman and nearby patrons when Ford later buys four packets of peanuts, also
asking the barman to keep the change from a fiver.
(IMG) A pint of light-coloured beer on wooden board, with the sea in the background. An orange towel sits alongside.
We're never told exactly what the barman would have charged Ford. But looking
at the history of average UK beer prices and assuming that the story is set in
1979, we can assume that the pints will have been around 34p each (The
recession of the 1970s brought high inflation that caused the price of beer to
rocket, pretty much tripling in price over the course of the decade. Probably
Douglas Adams didn't anticipate that it'd more-than-double again over the
course of the 1980s before finally slowing down somewhat... at least until tax
changes in 2003 and the aftermath of the 2022 inflation rate spike!), so
around £2.04 for six of them. So... Ford left a 194% tip for the beer (We do
know that the four packets of peanuts Ford bought later were priced at 7p
each, so his tip on that transaction was a massive 1,686%: little wonder the
barman suddenly started taking more-seriously Ford's claims about the imminent
end of the world!).
1990
By the time I first read Hitch-Hikers, around 1990, this joke was already
dated. By then, an average pint of bitter would set you back £1.10. I didn't
have a good awareness of that, being as I was well-underage to be buying
myself alcohol! But I clearly had enough of an awareness that my dad took the
time to explain the joke... that is, to point out that when the story was
written (and is presumably set), six pints would cost less than half of five
pounds.
But by the mid-nineties, when I'd found a friend group who were also familiar
with the Hitch-Hikers... series, we'd joke about it. Like pointing out that by
then if you told the barman to keep the change from £5 after buying six pints,
the reason he'd express surprise wouldn't be because you'd overpaid...
(IMG) Stock photo of a barman serving two patrons, annotated with speech bubbles. One patron says "Keep the change." The barman, smiling, says "What, from a a fiver. Fuck you sir."
1998
Precocious drinker that I was, by the late nineties I was quite aware of the
(financial) cost of drinking.
(IMG) Dan, then with long black hair, sits with another young white man in a garden, in front of a table laden with several bottles of wine and around 80 cans of beer.
And so when it was announced that a new denomination of coin - the £2 coin -
would enter general circulation (There were commemorative £2 coins of a
monometallic design floating around already, of course, but - being
collectible - these weren't usually found in circulation, so I'm ignoring
them.) I was pleased to announce how sporting it was of the government to
release a "beer token".
With the average pint of beer at the time costing around £1.90 and a still
cash-dominated economy, the "beer token" was perfect! And in my case,
it lasted: the bars I was drinking at in the late 1990s were in the
impoverished North, and were soon replaced with studenty bars on the West
coast of Wales, both of which allowed the price of a pint to do battle with
inflationary forces for longer than might have been expected elsewhere in the
country. The "beer token" that was the £2 coin was a joke that kept on giving
for some time.
(IMG) Close-up of a 1998 £2 coin; bimetallic, with an inner ring of cogs expanding outwards into several interlocking spirals.
2023
As the cost of living rapidly increased circa 2023, the average price of a
pint of beer in the UK finally got to the point where, rounded to the nearest
whole pound, it was closer to £5 than it is to £4 (Otherwise known as "two
beer tokens", of course. As in "Bloody hell, 2022, why does a pint of draught
cost two beer tokens now?").
And while we could moan and complain about how much things cost nowadays, I'd
prefer to see this as an opportunity. An opportunity for a new beer token: a
general-release of the £5 coin. We already some defined characteristics that
fit: a large, heavy coin, about twice the weight of the £2 coin, with a
copper/nickel lustre and struck from engravings with thick, clear lines.
And the design basically comes up with itself. I give you... the Beer Token of
the 2020s:
(IMG) Mockup of a silver-coloured £5 coin with the words "FIVE POUNDS" and also "BEER TOKEN" printed around a stylised frothy pint of beer, dripping down the sides of its glass.
It's time for the beer token to return, in the form of the £5 coin. Now is the
time... now is the last time, probably... before cash becomes such a rarity
that little thought is evermore given to the intersection of its design and
utility. And compared to a coin that celebrates industry while simultaneously
representing a disfunctional machine, this is a coin that Brits could actually
be proud of. It's a coin that tourists would love to take home with them,
creating a satisfying new level of demand for the sinking British Pound that
might, just might, prop up the economy a little, just as here at home they
support those who prop up the bar.
I know there must be a politician out there who's ready to stand up and call
for this new coin. My only fear is that it's Nigel Fucking Farage... at which
point I'd be morally compelled to reject my own proposal.
But for now, I think I'll have another drink.
LINKS
(HTM) The history of average UK beer prices
(HTM) Tax changes in 2003
(HTM) 2022 inflation rate spike
(HTM) The £2 coin
(HTM) Andy Fogg
(HTM) £5 coin