Peter Lalor, a cricket writer from Australia, who was charged STG55,000 for a single ale believes he drank "the most expensive beer in history".

Lalor was staying in a branch of Malmaison in Manchester ahead of the fourth Ashes Test match when he bought a bottle of Deuchars IPA at the hotel bar.

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The drink was supposed to be priced at STG5.50, but when he came to pay a member of staff, it became apparent that something was not quite right.

Writing on Twitter, Lalor said: "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."

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But Lalor said nobody got in touch with him and he was unaware exactly how much had been taken from the account until he received a call from home.

"The sum of $99,983.64 had been removed from our account," he said. "And, there'd been a transaction fee of $2,499.59 to add to the pain. The fee has been refunded but not the larger amount."

Not happy! Credit: Twitter

Lalor said it was "baffling" that the transaction had been gone through "unquestioned" and while he had been promised a refund in nine working days, "in the meantime there's a massive hole in my finances".

Around an hour and a half after tweeting about the incident, Lalor said the hotel had been in touch and were "being very helpful now".

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."