At some point over the past couple of years, a quiet shift happened in Belfast.

You ordered a pint. You tapped your card. Then you did a small mental calculation.

"When did a pint become £6?"

For many people, the price of a pint has become an unofficial way to measure inflation. Everyone seems to have a story about the last place they paid too much.

Belfast founder Jonny Campbell, a former lecturer at Ulster University, noticed the same conversation happening everywhere.

In group chats. On Reddit. In everyday conversation.

So he built something to track it.

Pint Tracker began as a weekend coding challenge.

Jonny was looking for a small project he could build quickly to sharpen his coding skills outside his main startup. His goal was simple: ship something useful in about 48 hours.

It was around the same time he kept seeing the same conversation popping up everywhere. Not just inflation in general, but one very specific metric.

The price of a pint.

"This had become a kind of unofficial economic indicator," he says. "Everyone seemed to have a story about how much they'd paid somewhere the week before."

Instead of relying on anecdotes, Jonny wondered if people could simply track the prices themselves.

That idea became Pint Tracker, a website where users can submit and update the cost of a pint in pubs across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

A Side Project Alongside a Startup

Pint Tracker may have started as a weekend challenge, but Jonny's main focus is Foresight, a regulatory intelligence platform he co-founded, that helps companies stay compliant with changing regulations. Although both projects are different, they both come from the same instinct: find a problem people are talking about, and build something to solve it.

What the Data Says About Belfast

The numbers paint an interesting picture of how drinking prices have shifted in the city.

At the time of publishing, Pint Tracker lists 486 pubs in Belfast, with live price data for 108 of them.

The averages tell a clear story:

In other words, the £6 pint has effectively become the new normal.

But the range is where things get interesting.

The cheapest pint in Belfast currently sits at £4.10 at both Davitts Bar and Diamond Jubilee. At the other end of the spectrum, the most expensive is £7.50 at Malmaison Belfast.

That wide gap is something locals often talk about, but rarely see measured.

A Community Project

When Jonny first launched Pint Tracker toward the end of 2024, maintaining the data quickly became the biggest challenge. Updating pub prices manually simply wasn't sustainable.

So he rebuilt the platform, redesigning it to be fully community driven. Users can now submit new prices, update existing ones, flag incorrect data, and track their own pub visits.

Since relaunching in, more than 100 new price submissions have already come in from across Ireland, from Derry to Dingle.

More Than Just Cheap Pints

Although the project started by tracking Guinness prices in Belfast, Jonny sees a bigger opportunity.

The goal isn't just to answer: "Where is the cheapest pint?"

He wants the platform to help people answer something more useful.

"Where should we actually go tonight?"

That's why Pint Tracker is expanding beyond prices into pub ratings, reviews, pub crawl lists, and general pub discovery. In a time when many pubs are struggling or closing, Jonny believes tools like this can help people find and support the places worth visiting.

Want to Help?

Pint Tracker only works if people contribute. If you're out for a pint this week, you can add or update a price yourself.

Check it out at pinttracker.com and see how your local compares.

Your next round might help map the city. 🍺

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