If there’s one thing we will always bang on about, it’s when we find a great deal on pints. Sometimes that requires searching high and low, scouring through the tap lists of bars and breweries.
And then, sometimes, someone just, y’know, makes a map and tells you where to find some of London’s cheapest pints. Enter: the Cheapest Pints on the Tube map. Yep, that’s a Tube map redesigned for the sole purpose of finding the cheapest pint near every Tube station. Hallelujah!
Disclaimer: it’s not a real tube map (because apparently that needs a disclaimer now…)
(See a large-scale version here)
This noble undertaking is the work of storekit, and should frankly be held up as the gold standard of PR exercises: one which gets us boozed for less. Keen eyes may remember a similar map coming out a few years back – that’d be the same lovely people providing the same service. They just reckoned the whole thing needed an update. A lot has changed since 2019 after all!
So, the rules! The focus was on pints at pubs (no clubs, bars, or restaurants), and it has to be the closest pub to that tube station, because we are as lazy as we are thirsty. It turns the whole thing into a wonderfully helpful twofer: here’s the nearest place to go, and the cheapest pint available! The result is a rather exhaustive survey of 304 pubs across London and some ridiculously priced pints.
The Results of the Pint Price Map
Diving right in to the data, there are some very surprising, and not so surprising, results. The average pint price, for example, has risen from £3.91 in 2019 to £4.47 in 2022. But we all knew prices had been going up over the past years.
But while pint prices have gone up, the cost of the cheapest pints available has actually gone down! In 2019 the cheapest pint available near a tube station was £1.89, which has since gone down to £1.49 for a pint of Ruddles (available at 4 Wetherspoons pubs). We’re not going to make it too easy for you, though, as you’ll have to find them for yourself on the map!
And clearly, some things are bound to never change, as the pint price map found that the most common cheap pint was Foster’s. The ‘Australian’ lager reigns supreme – for price at least. The Italians came out on top, however, with Peroni being the most popular pint despite not being the cheapest.
Naming and shaming at the other end of the scale, you’re going to want to avoid Neck Oil pints if you’re simply looking for the cheapest pint, as it came in at the most frequent expensive pint on menus at pubs across the capital.
And while plenty of places are still offering delightfully affordable pints, the most expensive pint at these pubs has risen sharply since 2019: from £5.55 to £6.50. We’re not saying that’s most expensive pint in London, remember, before you start writing in with your examples of other expensive pints! Just of the pubs that are closest to tube stations.
A surprising read, and a heartening read. It turns out London isn’t quite the hell-hole of awful pint prices it’s made out to be. Sometimes we just need to take a closer look… Or consult the map!
Also published on Medium.