The British pub – past, present and future

I'm sitting in the Lyric, a Victorian pub with a village feel, in the middle of London's Soho district. Its handsome dark-wood bar is decorated with hundreds of beer mats, each one a piece of British brewing history. The sun shines through the etched windows, blending with the ebb and flow of conversation and the beery aromas to create a happy, soupy atmosphere.

From nowhere, a man with bright pink hair appears. He takes off his sailor hat, places it on my head. I try to give it back, but he won't take it. Until an elderly customer at a nearby table tells him, "Move on. Can't you see she's busy?" The man with the pink hair disappears. The barmaid shakes her head: "He's been driving me mental!" she says, turning to pull another pint.

Welcome to British pub culture, a tradition going back to Roman times. In the best establishments, it's like being in someone else's living room. Among complete strangers, you'll start to recog-nize characters you feel you've known for ages. This isn't just the effect of the beer. There's something about walking into the right pub, a kind of magic, that makes you drop your guard and relax.

Why Brits love their pubs

Pubs are in the hearts of the British people. Yet, talking to Chelsea Lee and Paul Fowler, who manage the Lyric, there are many types of pub - sports pubs, gastro pubs, family pubs, old men's pubs, city pubs, country pubs. So, defining their common appeal is tricky. "We feel it's our home. We all come from different places, but here we're all the same," says Lee.

How so in such a busy part of London, where most customers are tourists, theatre-goers and office workers? I'm thinking about this, when the elderly punter offers to buy Lee and Fowler a drink. From the way they chat, I imagine they've all known each other for years. "Is he a regular?" I ask. Fowler shakes his head - they've only just met.

This is not to say there are no regulars here. Around a fifth of the clientele regularly drop in for the craft beers. Polly's, a maker of limited-edition hoppy brews, is popular. "It's part of the new wave of craft beers. They make one beer, then sell it all. When it's finished, they make something else," says Fowler. Regulars quickly recognize fellow lovers of craft beer. "They say to each other: ‘Do you want to try some of this?'"

It matters who runs the pub

On the quieter streets of Pimlico, I visit the Gallery. This pub would fill a few pages of a local history book. Opened in 1841 by Thomas Cubitt, a master builder who designed much of the area, the punters were Irish workers who built the Regency townhouses. The atmosphere is as lively as it might have been back then, with people crammed around picnic tables under baskets of flowers.

From the scenes outside, the Gallery seems to be pulling in both regulars and tourists. But times are tough, says landlord Charles Graham. Over the past decade and a half, the smoking ban and high taxes on beer have hit pubs hard. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, punters suffering from austerity measures now often prefer to relax at home with Netflix and beer from the supermarket. Shockingly, according to recent reports, 7,000 pubs have closed in England and Wales since 2012, around 600 during and after the pandemic.

"Cost-cutting is not an option," says Graham. We're in the lounge area, there are gilded mirrors and pictures of old London on the walls. A crystal-clear TV screen is showing the England-Norway women's football match and a giant fan is blowing cool air. The Sky contract costs Graham £22,000 a year, broadband around £13,000, and now gas and electricity prices are going through the roof. Back in October, three boxes of cod cost him £70. Now the price is £130.

Happily for Graham, whose lease of the Gallery runs until 2031, the deed says owners can use the building only as a pub. This means the Gallery has some protection from property vultures, who buy pubs that are not doing well over landlords' heads to cut up the location into lucrative flats.

You need a combination of public spirit and toughness to survive in this business, qualities that Graham clearly has lots of. The days of just selling beer are over, he says. He offers classic pub dishes and snacks and is opening a hostel upstairs this summer, with prices for a bed starting at £35.

Interesting encounters

In Piccadilly, the Queen's Head pub is full of office workers and tourists at 7 p.m. on a Thursday. This is one of London's best-known independent pubs, dating back to 1736. The old-fashioned wallpaper, high stools and chandeliers are thick with history.

There's a painting on the wall showing gentlemen in top hats with their pedigree dogs. The elegant scene masks a more sordid past, when punters would come to pubs like the Queen's Head to watch rat-baiting. This is history - unvarnished. And it's part of pub culture, even if we don't think much about it.

Landlord Joe Curran is seated at the bar with a couple of customers, one of whom I just talked to in the toilet. "It's you!" she cries, happily. "We just got chatting in the loos. We were joking about the wash-your-hands sign."

"Maybe you two should work together," says Curran, smiling.

"Why not?" says the lady, laughing.

Would this ever happen in a bar or cafe? Perhaps - but, the thing is, such encounters happen all the time in a pub. "Anyone can walk in off the street. That's what's expected. You might come to London and meet no one. But in a pub, you'll be chatting to someone within ten minutes," says Curran.

A place for good conversation

For Curran, the pub is at its best when it's hosting people from different backgrounds. "It doesn't matter if you're in a suit or if you're a builder. Tribal differences are left at the door. A pub crosses the class divide."

Good pubs make for good conversation. Compare online debate, often aggressive and extreme, with the face-to-face conversations in a pub. Curran believes that online chat lends itself to polarization, with people joining in to defend fanatical standpoints that quickly become fixed positions. "In a pub, extreme opinions are recognized and exposed," he says. "After a drink, it's a human thing to converse and try to understand, even if you don't change opinion."

With tough times ahead, not least a frightening increase in energy prices, people may need pubs more than ever this winter, for human contact and warmth. But at the rate that pubs are disappearing, especially in towns and villages, people might not have a local to visit. "Demand will resurge," says Curran. "But we need to keep those pubs here."

Britain's pubs have survived wars, famine, fire, plague and now the pandemic, so the odds are good. In the end, though, people will have to fight to keep the flame burning.

In the words of the writer Hilaire Belloc: "When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England."

PUB FACTS

Britain's oldest pub

Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, an 11th-century building on an eighth-century site in St Albans, once held the title. But Guinness World Records has declared the ranking inactive, so it's a subject of debate. To save the pub after the pandemic, staff took over the lease.

Liquid breakfast

Until the early 19th century, pubs sometimes stayed open 24 hours a day, so that people on their way to work could pick up a pint.

Wet rent

Over half of British pubs are owned by nine pub companies, or "pubcos". Publicans pay lower rents, but must buy beer from the company at higher rates, rather than buy directly from breweries of their choice.

Last orders?

There are currently just under 40,000 pubs in Britain. In England, the West Midlands is the area worst hit by pub closures. Another challenge is staff shortages. Three quarters of pubs are having trouble filling vacancies, says Molly Davis, of the British Institute of Innkeeping.