We've got mail:Ripped Off? Stunned by good value? Write, text or blog your experience to us:

Beer brouhaha

Richard Fennell is fond of the occasional can of Tuborg lager, which comes from Denmark. Or at least it used to. He bought a couple of cans in his local Tesco recently and was having a drink with his Danish girlfriend when they noticed something wasn't quite right with their beer. The girlfriend - using a word that Pricewatch is going to adopt immediately - complained that the beer had been "bewatered" or diluted. "When disposing of my can in the recycle bin I noticed the alcohol content had been reduced, but the price had not," writes Fennell. "On further investigation I saw that it was brewed in Ireland," he continues.

He rummaged in his recycle bin and found an old Tuborg can which had a higher alcohol content and had been brewed and canned in the Carlsberg brewery in Denmark. The weaker Irish can and the stronger Danish version are identical in colour and shape, as is the cardboard packaging. Annoyed, Fennell contacted Tesco to complain as he was paying the same amount for an "inferior imitation beer".

"Needless to say," he writes, "my first letter has not been replied to and neither has my second one." He wants to know how could beer brewed and canned in Denmark with an alcohol content of 4.2 per cent be the same price as an inferior imitation brewed in Ireland with an alcohol content of 4 per cent? He also asks how many big businesses are involved in deceiving the consumer with "lookalike" products? While answering the second question might be difficult, we did try to find out when the "bewatered" Tuborg started selling in Ireland and why the alcohol by volume (ABV) had fallen slightly. We called five randomly selected off-licences, all of whom expressed surprise that the alcohol content of the beer had been reduced. They all confirmed that the price of the beer had not fallen in their shops.

Tuborg, like its sister beer Carlsberg, is now brewed in St James's Gate by Diageo, so we contacted that company to find out when it had started brewing Tuborg and why its alcohol content had fallen but its price had not. The company said that it had no control over the prices individual retailers charged for the product but pointed out that variations in the ABV of the same beers across the world was not uncommon.

L'eau value

Anne O'Leary was in Dublin airport recently, where she bought a bagel at the Bagel Factory. She also bought a 500ml bottle of water, and was horrified to be charged €2.60. "The same water costs from €1.60 to €1.80 at every other outlet at the airport," she writes - she was so annoyed by price she had been asked to pay that she checked. "How can they justify charging €1 more for water than anyone else? Most people were taking away their bagels, so they can't attribute it to 'eat-in charges'," she fumes.

And, in the Abbey Theatre, another reader thought being asked to pay €2.40 for a small bottle of water was equally excessive.