More Than a Pint: Why and How to Save Your Local Pub
Many pubs are going to the wall, sometimes due to rising rents. Other times due to high beer tax (England has some of the highest taxes in Europe).
Plunkett is the organisation that helps to start or save community pubs (and community shops). It can reach out with expertise help, and sometimes get you discounts on insurance and other perks.
Join CAMRA and joy discounts on your favourite artisan beers. The membership pays for itself in no time, and helps to save your independenet favourite pubs!
What is vertical drinking?
This is when pubs remove the seats and put the music up loud. So you can’t sit in a pub pretending you’re in the cast of an Inspector Morse episode, sipping real ale and hearing the murmur of nearby voices. That means less profits (taking an hour to drink a pint).
So instead, the seats are removed and the loud music means you have to stand up and shout at whoever you are with, and drink faster to order more (or leave so someone else takes your place).
Wetherspoon’s don’t even let your dog in their beer gardens. One blind woman was even refused entry, as she could not produce ‘suitable ID’ for her guide dog.
When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves. For you will have lost the last of England. Hilaire Belloc
Rural pubs are disappearing, leaving many villages bereft not just of a place to drink, but of a focus for the community. In towns, giant high-street drinking sheds – known in the trade as ‘high-voume vertical drinking establishments’ open in their place. An explosion of identikit chains – in what critics call a ‘McDonaldisation’ of the traditional pub’ Paul Kingsnorth
A few ideas to help save local pubs
- Offer a loyalty card (including no-alcohol drinks) for regulars.
- Rent outside space to local farmers’ markets.
- Be the drop-off point for people collecting parcels.
- Be the place for musicians to perform acoustic concerts.
- If you have a license, use upstairs as an independent cinema.
- Offer board game nights and domino competitions!
- Be the venue for local repair cafes and similar initiatives.
A pub for all seasons (in search of the perfect local)
A Pub for All Seasons is a travel guide with a difference, the author on a mission to discover the best pubs in Britain. Ever since he was old enough, the author has been visiting pubs all over the country. Join Adrian as he visits mellow gentle pubs, cosy spots, lively bars and buzzing garden pubs.
Along the way, he speaks to locals and landlords, hears unique sounds and stories, and notices the differences between pubs throughout his year-long journey.
And what started as a simple quest to find a nice place to sit and drink, ends up revealing so much more: the secret to what truly makes the perfect British local pub.
A poetic meditation on the public house, an appreciation of what makes a pub great. Spectator
Adrian Tierney-Jones is a journalist and writer on beer, travel and pubs. He can often be found with a glass, telling tales of drinking beer in bars across the world. He lives in Devon.
Vegan bacon crisps and porkless scratchings!
Fairfield Crisps are made with local potatoes, and all their flavours (even bacon and beef are vegan!) They are sure to go down a treat with your punters, This brand plants lots of nice things on farms for pollinators, and sets aside 5% of farmland for local birds and wildlife. It also plants trees, hedges and cover crops to capture carbon.
Although customers can recycle crisp packets at supermarket bag bins, why not local Terracycle box, for people to bring empty crisp packets, to send off for industrial recycling? You could be the ‘community hub’ for all kinds of Terracycle boxes (beauty waste, pens, party goods etc).
Pork scratchings are made from the boiled collagen of pigs, then cooled and trimmed to remove excess fat, and baked or fried (only once, to keep them fatty and chewy). If that sounds disgusting, it is. So switch to plant-based ones instead!
Serious Pig pork scratchings are vegan-friendly! Made from crunchy puffed corn, and seasoned with sage, sea salt and white pepper. These also contain around 18 times less satuarated fat than real pork scratchings.
This is not a vegan company (it makes free-range real pork scratchings as well). But unless pubs make their own ones (unlikely) this is the next best choice. Two servings per bag, and the more they sell, the less real ones will be sold.
Avoid pork scratchings for young children and choking hazards (for the same reasons, don’t give leftovers to pets, garden birds or wildfowl).
