Right, so you want to do a proper Belfast Guinness crawl. Fair play. I’ve mapped out a route that takes you from the South to the Cathedral Quarter, hitting 12 venues for £67.69. That’s an average of £5.64 per pint, which in 2025 is either a bargain or a financial cry for help depending on your perspective.
But here’s the thing.. 12 pints is a lot. Like, a genuinely inadvisable amount. That’s roughly 7 litres of Guinness coursing through your system. For most humans, that’s not a pub crawl, it’s a medical intervention waiting to happen.
So let me give you the full route, but also the sensible version. The one where you actually remember Sunflower at the end instead of just waking up with their beer mat stuck to your face.
The Route: Zig-Zag North
Total Cost (Full Crawl): £67.69 | Average: £5.64
Sensible Crawl (with substitutions): £58.79 | Average: £4.90
| Stop | Venue | Price | Value Score | The Tactical Play |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Bridge House | £4.39 | 0.93 | Start. Cheap base layer. FOOD. |
| 2 | The Garrick | £6.20 | 0.73 | 3 min walk. Chichester St. |
| 3 | Kitchen Bar | £5.80 | 0.72 | 3 min walk. Victoria Square. |
| 4 | Whites Tavern | £6.30 | 0.71 | 2 min walk. Historic stop. |
| 5 | Fountain Lane | £5.70 | 0.75 | 5 min walk. Food upstairs (optional). |
| 6 | Hercules Bar | £5.00 | 0.88 | 3 min walk. Food upstairs (optional). |
| 7 | Nancy Mulligans | £5.50 | 0.80 | 1 min walk. Castle St. |
| 8 | Kelly’s Cellars | £5.80 | 0.81 | 2 min walk. The absolute classic. |
| 9 | Maddens | £5.60 | 0.84 | 3 min walk. Best atmosphere. |
| 10 | The Mermaid Bar | £6.00 | 0.70 | 2 min walk. Hidden gem off High St. |
| 11 | Duke of York | £6.50 | 0.72 | 5 min walk. Bunsen detour available. |
| 12 | Sunflower | £4.90 | 0.96 | 5 min walk. No Guinness just delicious Creamy Beamys and pizza in beer garden. |
What’s This Value Score Business? It’s a calculation based on two things: price (cheaper = better) and Google review score (higher = better). A 0.93 means you’re getting quality pints at a price that leaves you enough for the bus home. Anything above 0.80 is generally sound. It’s not science, but it stops you paying tourist prices for rubbish Guinness.
Why This Route Actually Works
The East Cleardown: You hit Garrick, Kitchen, and Whites in one tight cluster before crossing Donegall Place. This means you’re doing the touristy bit while you still have the coordination to appreciate it.
The Smithfield Run (Extended): Stops 6-10 are now one continuous, glorious run of traditional pubs. From Hercules down to The Mermaid, you are in the historic heart of Belfast drinking. It’s tighter, easier to walk, and keeps you out of the rain.
The Finish: Sunflower at £4.90 for a Beamish is arguably the best pub in Belfast. That’s not hyperbole, that’s a defensible position. You’re rewarding yourself for completing the trek with quality and value.
The Food Intel (Optional But You’ll Probably Want It)
Look, you might be one of those people who can drink 12 pints on fresh air and a dream. Fair play. For the rest of us, here’s where to find food.
Stop 1: Bridge House – The Foundation
You’re in a Wetherspoons. Use this to your advantage. Get food now while you’re still capable of reading a menu and making rational decisions. Burger and chips, all-day breakfast (until 11:30am), whatever.. just get carbs in. It’s cheap (£6-8), it’s substantial, and it means you’re starting this crawl with actual structural integrity rather than just optimism and Guinness.
This is the smart move. Front-load the carbohydrates when you’re sober enough to actually taste them. Your future self, the one who’s 8 pints deep and arguing about whether that penalty was fair, will thank you.
Worth Knowing: Bridge House won a Loo of the Year award. Guinness is £4.39 here, which in 2025 Belfast is basically theft in your favour.
Stops 5-6: The Optional Mid-Point
Both Fountain Lane and Hercules Bar have food upstairs. You’re 4-5 pints deep at this point. Some of you will be fine. Some of you will be starting to feel the wobble. No judgment either way, but the option’s there if you need it.
Hercules Bar does solid pub grub. Fountain Lane likewise. Nothing fancy, nothing pretentious, just food that does the job. If you skipped breakfast or you’re a sensible person who understands biology, this is where you course-correct.
Stop 11: Bunsen – The Late-Game Recovery
Right before Duke of York. You’re 10 pints in, give or take. Even if you ate at Bridge House, that was six venues ago and your body has burned through it arguing about football/politics/whether that last pint tasted “off.”
Bunsen’s on Hill Street, literally on your way. Burger and fries, £12-14. Simple menu (burger, fries, shake.. that’s it), executed perfectly. Arguably the best burger in Ireland, and definitely the thing that determines whether you wake up tomorrow feeling human or feeling like you’ve been in a fight with a cement mixer.
Stop 12: The Boxing Hare at Sunflower – Victory Pizza (Or Emergency Measure)
You made it. You’re at Sunflower, which is brilliant, but if you skipped every food option I just mentioned and are now seeing double..the Boxing Hare does wood-fired pizza in the beer garden.
This works as either:
- A celebration meal (you completed the route, have a margherita, feel smug)
- An emergency intervention (you ignored all my advice and now urgently need carbohydrates before you start explaining your cryptocurrency portfolio to strangers)
It won’t fix everything if you’re in the second category, but it’s better than nothing. Pizza is around £10-15, and it’s genuinely good pizza, not just “I’m drunk and anything would taste good” pizza.
The Strategic Substitution Plan
Three natural break points where swapping to a half-pint or water won’t make you look like you’re on antibiotics:
Stop 5 (Fountain Lane): You’ve done 4 pints and you’re about to hit the Smithfield cluster. Half-pint (£2.85) or Guinness 0.0 (£4-4.50). Saves £2.85-3.20.
Stop 8 (Kelly’s Cellars): Been serving since 1720. Be present enough to appreciate it. Half-pint (£2.90) or water. This gives you stops 9-12 with something approaching cognitive function. Saves £2.90.
Stop 11 (Duke of York): The tourist tax at £6.50. Skip it entirely and go to Bunsen instead. Or have a half (£3.25). Or Guinness 0.0 (£4.50-5.00). Your call. Saves £3.25-6.50. Worth the dander for the photos.
Right, Let’s Talk About What This Actually Costs
The drinks are one thing. The food is another. Here’s the full damage:
Full Kamikaze Route:
- Drinks: £67.69 (all 12 pints)
- Food: £38-47 (if you hit all four food stops)
- Total: £105-115
Sensible Route:
- Drinks: £58.79 (9 pints + 3 half-pints/substitutions)
- Food: £28-37 (Bridge House + Bunsen + Boxing Hare)
- Total: £86-96
Budget Route:
- Drinks: £58.79 (with substitutions)
- Food: £18-22 (Bridge House + Bunsen only)
- Total: £76-81
“I Have Rent to Pay” Route:
- Drinks: £52.29 (skip Duke of York entirely)
- Food: £6-8 (just Bridge House)
- Total: £58-60
So we’re looking at anywhere between £60 and £115 depending on your ambition, your liver, and your financial situation. For context, that’s either “reasonable Saturday night out” or “my phone bill plus groceries.”
Plan accordingly.
The Reality Check
Let me be clear: even the “sensible” route is 9 pints plus change. That’s still a proper session. You’re not doing this on a Tuesday night before work. This is a Saturday undertaking. Probably followed by Sunday regret and a very sincere promise to yourself that you’ll never drink again (until next weekend).
Some actual advice:
Eat something. I’ve given you four food options. Use at least two of them. Carbs are not a suggestion, they’re infrastructure. The Bridge House breakfast/burger is non-negotiable if you want to make it past stop 6 without incident.
Pace yourself. This route takes 6-8 hours minimum if you’re not sprinting between venues like you’re being chased. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Though to be fair, it’s a marathon where every mile marker hands you a pint of Guinness.
Hydration. Alternate water between stops or you’ll feel like you’ve been hit by a bus made of regret. Your kidneys are doing their best. Help them out.
Know your limits. If you’re done at stop 6, you’re done at stop 6. There’s no prize for finishing. Nobody’s impressed by the bloke who completed all 12 stops and then spent the night having a deep philosophical conversation with a traffic cone.
What Could Go Wrong
The Optimistic View: You complete the route, remember most of it, wake up with a moderate headache and some excellent photos of Victorian pub interiors. The Bunsen burger and Boxing Hare pizza did their jobs. You feel like a sophisticated person who did culture.
The Realistic View: You make it to stop 8, realise you’ve made a terrible mistake, and spend 45 minutes in Kelly’s Cellars having a surprisingly meaningful conversation with someone’s dog. You Uber home with half a pizza in your bed and no memory of ordering it. Your bank statement shows a transaction at a 24-hour garage for £23 worth of Haribo and regret.
The Bottom Line
This route works. The geography is solid, the price strategy is sound (cheap start, expensive middle, bargain finish), and the clustering around Smithfield is genuinely clever. The food options are spaced properly to give you actual structural support rather than just theoretical advice about “eating something.”
But treat it like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. Do the full 12 if you’re training for the Olympics or have a functioning liver made of steel. Do 9 with food stops if you’re sensible. Do 6 and call it a night if you value your Saturday morning and have literally anything planned for Sunday.
The goal isn’t to prove you can drink 12 pints. The goal is to experience Belfast’s pub culture, drink some excellent Guinness, maybe have the best burger in Ireland, and actually remember doing it.
Nobody’s impressed by the bloke who finished all 12 stops but can’t remember anything past stop 7 except that the Bunsen burger was “really good, like really good, no but seriously..”
One Last Thing: All these prices are current as of December 2025, but Guinness prices shift like the weather and pub food costs aren’t much better. Check before you set out. Nothing ruins a carefully planned route faster than discovering your budget was based on last month’s pricing and you’re now £20 short with four stops to go.