Jesús Fernández, a Madrid resident, has spent months building a database that many have been eagerly awaiting: an interactive map showing the actual price of beer at every bar in the city. His project is called BeerMaps; it’s free, ad-free, and already includes nearly a thousand prices from 1,174 bars in the capital—the city with the most data in the entire app.
The figures it reveals are quite revealing. A medium-sized beer in Madrid costs €3.20, with half of the bars falling within a range of €2.64 to €3.63. But that average hides a massive gap between neighborhoods: Chueca is 57% more expensive than Lavapiés, with an average price of €4.75 compared to €3.02 in the southern neighborhood. Sol, Malasaña, and Salamanca are also clearly above average, while Arganzuela, Argüelles, and Chamartín are below it.
From €1 to €11: the same beer, eleven different prices
The most striking fact is the sheer range of prices. The cheapest third of a liter recorded in Madrid is €1, at the Mana bars on Orense, Juan Bravo, and Maldonado streets. At the opposite end of the spectrum, a bar in the Sol area charges as much as €11.39 for the same drink. The same beer—eleven times more expensive depending on where you sit.
BeerMaps works like a map app where each establishment directly displays its beer price, allowing users to compare options in the immediate vicinity before going in. Jesús continuously updates the data and provides, for anyone who needs it, a complete neighborhood-by-neighborhood table and a list of the cheapest bars by area. The app can be downloaded for free from the official BeerMaps website.