Chancellor George Osborne made the announcement during his fourth Budget statement today.

As well as reducing the general beer duty by 2%, the Government has also cancelled the escalator for beer duty next year. Instead it will increase by inflation to support community pubs.

Osborne said: “I intend to maintain the planned rise for all alcohol duties – with the exception of beer.

“We will now scrap the beer duty escalator altogether. And instead of the 3p rise in beer duty tax planned for this year I am cancelling it altogether. That’s the freeze people have been campaigning for.

“But I’m going to go one step further and I am going to cut beer duty by 1p. We’re taking a penny off a pint. The cut will take effect this Sunday night and I expect it to be passed on in full to customers.”

George Charles, marketing director of www.VoucherCodesPro.co.uk, said: “The traditional pint has often been threatened by recent rises in alcohol duty, so whilst alcohol duty is yet again set to go up, it’s a canny counteraction to not only scrap the planned 3p beer duty increase but also reduce the current duty by 1p.

“If you drink 360 pints on Sunday, consider one of them to be on George!”