09, April, 2021, LONDON –

The average cost of a pint in the UK has fallen by 2% to £3.86 from £3.94 in 2020, according to shopping comparison website finder.com

The research, which was carried out ahead of pubs reopening on Monday (12th April) for the first time in more than 3 months, found that London remains the least affordable city for drinking in the UK, costing £5.33 per pint on average.

The cost of booze in Brighton isn’t far off, despite decreasing by almost 4% since last year. Here, locals pay £4.83 for an ice cold pint.

Edinburgh comes in as the third most expensive city, with pints costing £4.73 on average. Following this is Bristol and Cambridge with a beer costing £4.46 and £4.40 respectively.

The cheapest UK city to have a socially-distanced pint now that many pubs have reopened is in Perth, where locals need to pay just £3.07 for a pint. This is 42% cheaper than the capital and 79p less than the UK’s average.

Leicester (£3.12) closely follows as the second cheapest pint with Stoke-on-Trent (£3.17 taking 3rd spot). The fourth cheapest destination for a pint is Dundee (£3.29), whilst Preston takes 5th place (£3.32).

By comparing the price of a beer in 177 of the world’s most populated cities in each country, London ranks as the 18th most expensive. The £5.33 that locals are forced to pay is over double the global average, which sits at £2.45 a pint.

It certainly isn’t cheap to head to a London pub, but there are numerous cities that will burn a larger hole in your pocket. A pint in Doha, Oslo, Muscat and Reykjavik will cost between £1.11 to £4.17 more, but the dearest pint was found in Dubai, at an eye-watering £9.93.

In contrast, the cheapest pint in the world is found in Lusaka, Zambia at a very affordable 56p. This is closely followed by Freetown in Sierra Leone at 61p, while those heading to Lagos, Nigeria can enjoy a pint for only 67p.

For a full breakdown of the research, including data for all countries and an interactive world map, visit: https://www.finder.com/uk/international-pint-price-map

Commenting on the research, Deputy Editor at finder.com, Louise Bastock said:
“Despite the inflation rate being 0.77% in 2020 the cost of a pint has gone down by 2%, which it’s good news for consumers, especially as the pubs are set to reopen next week. This is quite the contrast to last year’s figures when the average cost of a pint had risen by 4 times the rate of inflation (1.5% as of March 2020). However, it is likely that pubs and bars will have to increase their prices in order to make up for the losses they have incurred by being closed for multiple periods over the last year. This will probably cause the cost of a pint to shoot up in the coming months or year.”

Methodology:
The numbers in this piece are based on data from cost-of-living sites Expatistan and Numbeo as of 7 April 2021. The majority of values were averaged from the two sites. In the few cases when this was not possible, data from Numbeo or Expatistan was used alone.
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