Wetherspenny is a web app that ranks drinks at any Wetherspoons pub by value for money, using live data from the Wetherspoons API and server-side rendering in Next.js.
What is Wetherspenny?
Wetherspenny is an open-source web tool that fetches a Wetherspoons pub's drink menu from the unofficial Wetherspoons API and processes it into a list sorted by how much pure alcohol you get per penny. It runs as a Next.js application deployed on Vercel, with the interface built using React and Chakra UI. The project was created by Charlie Morris and is licensed under the MIT license, with the GitHub repository currently showing 10 stars.
Key Features
- Live menu data — Drinks and prices are pulled directly from the Wetherspoons API, so the value rankings reflect the current menu at the selected pub.
- Value ranking — The app calculates the ratio of alcohol content to price and sorts drinks so the best value items appear first.
- Server-side rendering — Next.js server-side props are used to fetch and process the drink data on the server, delivering a fully rendered page rather than a client-side spinner.
- Chakra UI interface — The front end is built with Chakra UI components, giving a clean, responsive layout without a custom CSS framework.
- TypeScript throughout — The codebase is written in TypeScript, providing compile-time type safety across the API integration and React components.
- Transparent exclusions — Cocktails and pitchers are omitted from the ranking because Wetherspoons does not disclose their alcohol content, making a fair value calculation impossible.
- Promo offer handling — Promotional multi-buy deals are included as regular portions, with a note that they require purchasing several drinks to get the offer price.
- MIT licensed — The source code is freely available for reuse, modification, and integration into other projects.
Who is it for?
- Wetherspoons customers — Look up a specific pub and see which drinks give the most alcohol for the price before ordering at the bar.
- Budget-conscious drinkers — Compare lagers, ales, wines, and spirits on the same scale so you can get the most value for a fixed budget.
- Next.js developers — Study a real-world example of consuming a public JSON API and passing the processed results to a React page via server-side props, complete with TypeScript and Chakra UI.
What can you do with Wetherspenny?
- Pub-goers: Enter or select a Wetherspoons branch and immediately get a ranked drink list showing the best value options.
- Event planners: Quickly identify the cheapest bulk drinks if you are organising a gathering at a Wetherspoons and want to keep the bar bill down.
- Tech hobbyists: Fork the repository and extend it with extra features such as searching by drink name, filtering by category, or saving favourite pubs.
How does Wetherspenny work?
The site accepts a pub identifier and uses the Wetherspoons API to fetch the current drink list for that location. Each drink's price and alcohol percentage are then processed into a value score, and the sorted results are handed to the React page as server-side props. Because the data is fetched during server-side rendering, the page loads with all rankings already in place.
FAQ
Is Wetherspenny free to use?
Yes, the live web app is free, and the source code is released under an MIT license, so you can self-host or modify it without charge.
Why are cocktails and pitchers not shown?
Wetherspoons does not disclose the amount of alcohol in its cocktails and pitchers, so Wetherspenny cannot calculate a meaningful value rating and therefore excludes them.
How is "best value" calculated?
The app divides the amount of alcohol in a drink (derived from its ABV and volume) by the price in pence. Drinks with the highest alcohol-per-penny ratio are ranked at the top.
Promo offers are included as regular portions in the list, but the app notes that they require you to purchase multiple drinks to get the promotional price, which may not suit single-drink purchases.
