Reading is the fifth cheapest place in the UK to drink a pint, research shows.

The average price of a beer in the town is £3.70, cheaper that a number of northern cities traditionally known for an affordable cold one.

Holiday rental website Holidu looked at the prices of top-rated pubs in 30 locations in the UK as well as the cheapest pints in the areas.

Using this data to work out an average, they found Inverness sold the cheapest pints, at £3.10, followed by Swansea and Glasgow.

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The only other town or city to beat Reading was Cardiff, at £3.60.

Among the top-rated pubs in Reading, a pint of lager sells for £4.40 to £4.70, while in Reading Wetherspoons the most popular pint is £2.60 and the cheapest just £2.

Predictably, the worst prices were found in London, at £4.50, with Wetherspoons doing a lot of the heavy lifting to bring down the average.

The news comes as beer prices are reportedly set to rise by 30 pence a pint as rising costs are passed on to consumers.

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More than eight in 10 pubs have raised prices or plan to do, according to The Times.

Dave Mountford, co-founder of the Forum of British Pubs, predicted publicans would have to increase pint prices from 20p to 30p to meet rising costs.

“In my pub that means I will be charging more than £4 for a pint of cask ale for the first time,” the Derby publican told the paper.