There's a Wetherspoons in West Yorkshire that sells the UK's cheapest pint but how far would you have to go to find a cheaper one? A very long way, it transpires14:28, 01 Jun 2026Updated 14:30, 01 Jun 2026A YouTuber stunned by the price of a pint at his local Wetherspoons set out to see if he could find anywhere cheaper – and ended up in a country that doesn't even exist.‌Robbie Knox had found that the UK's cheapest beer was a Worthington's Creamflow, being sold at a Spoons in Batley, Yorkshire for just 99p.‌Beating that price proved harder than you might imagine – taking Robbie on a trek that first took him to several bars in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Calculating the precise cost of each beer involved a certain amount of mathematical gymnastics, because throughout continental Europe drinks tend to be sold by the litre.‌Another challenge was that most of the bars he visited tended to be restaurants first, and boozers second – a fact that was inevitably reflected in the pricing. The first drink he tried cost almost three times the price you’d pay in Batley’s The Union Rooms: “It’s €3.40, which is about £2.95,” he explained in a new video “So, certainly not the cheapest beer on our trip, but a restaurant beer in London would be more expensive than that.”Philosophically, he added: “Our first beer was a bit of a way off of our 99p target, but we did eat some lovely food to line our stomachs for the extensive scientific research ahead of us.”Even in Sofia’s university district, populated largely by students who enjoy a bit of budget booze, Robbie failed to beat the Yorkshire pint. This, he decided, called for more drastic measures.‌“I think we're going to have to leave the Eurozone if we are going to find Europe's cheapest beers,” Robbie said. “I've been doing a little bit of research here. We're discounting Ukraine and Belarus for obvious reasons, which leaves one country that all the data is pointing towards having the cheapest beer.“Data from Numbeo claims it has beer cheaper than India, Russia and Thailand and the cheapest in Europe excluding Ukraine and Belarus… so, all the research is pointing to one country having Europe's cheapest beer. So, we're going to pack everything up because we are off to Moldova.”‌The former Soviet republic of Moldova has gained quite a reputation as a wine-producer, but it’s also home to a growing craft beer culture.“This is my first time in Moldova. It's very different than I expected,” Robbie said, adding that the streets of the capital, Chișinău, have a nice “independent trader type vibe,” and that his research suggested that the city’s large central park was surrounded by nice bars – where he would surely be able to find a bargain pint.‌Things didn’t start well, with Robbie’s first Moldovan pint meeting him back the equivalent of £4.72: “Pretty much on a par with Norwich, which is where I live,” he said.He did find another bar in Moldova with significantly lower prices, but at £1.88 for a beer it still couldn’t match The Union Rooms. He explained that even that bar was really part of one of Chișinău’s many fancy restaurants and that he felt sure he wold be Abel to find somewhere cheaper.Robbie explained: “If you're considering purchasing power, Moldova is the poorest country in Europe. But it's not what I expected. Some of the roads have seen better days and and there's some pretty substantial potholes around and things like that, but there's a lot of great bars, a lot of great-looking restaurants, and some lovely bakeries, and coffee shops.”‌But, it emerged, Moldova had no real equivalent to Wetherspoons. Robbie decided to get out of the capital, reasoning that prices might be lower in the smaller towns. And that thought led him to the mysterious nation of Transnistria.After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many of the smaller states that the USSR had absorbed regained their independence. But one small section of Moldova wasn’t happy about that. A sliver of land along Moldova’s Ukrainian border seceded from the newly-independent Moldovan state and proclaimed its own independence and determination to retain closer ties with Russia.‌Today, largely unrecognised by most nation states, Transnistria maintains a somewhat ambiguous status on the world stage. But it also maintains, Robbie learned, some of the cheapest bars on the entire continent.Official Foreign Office guidance advises British tourists against traveling to Transnistria but, in the interest of scientific research, Robbie decided to take the risk.It proved to be worthwhile. Exchanging his remaining Euros for some of the curious Transnistrian currency – which uses plastic coins more like something from a board game than from a bank – Robbie finally managed to find a beer that could compete with Yorkshire prices. He explained: “I’m delighted I managed to beat the 99p pint with this 77p one. It's a surprising we had to go to such lengths to get a hold of it though.”Article continues belowFactoring in costs of travel and accommodation, on balance, he might well have been better off staying in West Yorkshire.