The great philosophical question!
To borrow almost wholesale from Wikipedia:
A pub (short for public house) is an establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term public house first appeared in the late 17th century, and was used to differentiate private houses from those which were, quite literally, open to the public as ‘alehouses’, ‘taverns’ and ‘inns’. By Georgian times it had become common parlance, although taverns, as a distinct establishment, had largely ceased to exist by the beginning of the 19th century. Today, pubs have no strict definition, but CAMRA states a pub has four characteristics:
- is open to the public without membership or residency
- serves draught beer or cider without requiring food be consumed
- has at least one indoor area not laid out for meals
- allows drinks to be bought at a bar (i.e., not only table service)
And it was somewhat strangely that the CAMRA definition is almost exactly what myself and friends decided on one night sitting in The Geldart’s beer garden!
So for the purposes of this adventure, I’m sticking (pretty much) to the four characteristics laid out by CAMRA.
Open to the public without membership or residency
This is one of the key points that is needed to differentiate a pub from a different establishment that serves alcohol. For the purposes of my pub crawl, I need to be able to walk in to a place, without membership fees/entry fee in order to purchase my beer.
Serves draught beer or cider without requiring food to be consumed
Again, this was an agreed point. It had to be possible to just go into an establishment for a drink, without the expectation that food had to be purchased at the same time.
Has at least one indoor area not laid out for meals
We weren’t too precise on this. Essentially, if you can go in somewhere and get a drink and sit down, I’m not too worried if the table is laid up for dinner, as long as the above criteria is met.
Allows drinks to be bought at a bar
This seemed very apt at the time. In a period where you were not allowed to stand at a bar, and therefore go through the same conversation in every pub you go in to “what beers do you have on?”, the idea of walking into a pub and ordering a drink from a bar seemed to be a hark back to the olden days of 2019…
What it’s not…
For the purposes of this pub crawl, I’m ignoring George Orwell’s essay “The Moon Under Water” (as good as it is) on the definition of what make a good pub. These kind of things are subjective.
As is the idea that a pub has to serve real ale to be a pub. It doesn’t (I’m already ignoring point 2 above!), it can serve lager on tap, or Smirnoff Ice, or tea/coffee/milkshakes or any other drink it wants to. Whether it’s a good pub or not is a different matter…!