Pubs & Pub Culture

What is Pubs & Pub Culture about?

Pubs & Pub Culture is a place‑based travel project, exploring the pubs of England and Wales and telling the stories of what’s it’s like to spend time in them. Visiting pubs is a cultural experience, introducing you to local people, sampling local foods and beers, spotting quirky decor and unusual toilets. Pubs aren’t just about the beer. Pubs are somewhere you can spend some time alone or connecting with a unique community, making friends and sharing cultural experiences. Some friends you might see again and some you might just connect with that one time but never forget (or want to forget). That, dear reader, is what Pubs & Pub Culture is all about.

What Pubs Mean To Me

I have been frequenting pubs for over 30 years. They have always been a safe haven for me – somewhere I can be myself, either alone or connecting with others. There have been times when I’ve been living under the same roof as people I didn’t want to be around; the pub provided an escape. There have been times when I’ve lived alone and the pub offered a ready-made local community. I can get on a train to a town I’ve never been to and there will always be someone there waiting to serve me a beer in a pub. Pubs provide shelter, food and drink to strangers who walk through their doors and that, dear reader, is a beautiful thing.

When I started out as a pubgoer as a teenager, I’d drink pints of Heineken and alcopops (mainly Hooch). But my favourite awaydays watching Blackpool were always the ones with friends on Good Beer Guide (GBG) pub crawls. Even though I was still drinking lager, I loved the experience of going to different pubs, seeing a bit of the town in between, but not knowing what the pubs were going to be like or who I was going to meet in them; it was a little adventure. I’d been frequenting pubs for over 10 years before I enjoyed my first pint of real ale. It was a Boxing Day match in Sheffield and I spotted an alluring pump clip on the bar at The Bankers Draft – some sort of Christmassy cinnamony spiced ale. I liked the look of that! And I was immediately converted to real ale, joining CAMRA and adding a whole new dimension to those GBG pub crawls. I later became less of a snob about ‘real ale’, enjoying craft beers irrespective of a brewing process that I never really understood anyway; I just wanted beer that tasted good. Fast forward another 20 years and my drink of choice has changed again – to alcohol-free beer. But what hasn’t changed in all that time – across all those genres of beer to suit my lifestyle at the time – is the presence and the homeliness of the pub and the adventure of the pub crawl. The pub has been a cornerstone of my life and has connected with me so many people – including through this blog, through which I’ve made many new friends (both virtually and in person in pubs).

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How to use Pubs & Pub Culture

Each pub post is the first-hand story of a pub crawl I have completed in a pub town. If you want to research a town before you visit – or are looking for inspiration for a day out – take a look at where I’ve been and see what takes your fancy. Supporting pubs is important if they are to survive, so I’d love you to follow these crawls, support the good ones and tell them I sent you! I’ve grouped my crawls by location below.

Town Hubs

Birmingham

Blackpool & The Fylde Coast

Burton on Trent

Buxton

Chorley

Cleethorpes

Derby

Doncaster

Halifax

Harrogate

Hebden Bridge

Hednesford

Lincoln

Liverpool

Manchester

Oldham

Penrith

Preston

Rochdale

Sheffield

Shipley

Stockport

Stratford on Avon

Walsall

Wigan

Where’s Next?

If I haven’t been to your favourite pub town yet, let me know about the best pubs. I’m especially interested in towns with strong local identity and good alcohol-free beer offerings. Let’s get your football town on the map!

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Start Here 👇

My most popular pub posts are below as a starting point for your research and inspiration for pub explorations of your own.

Further Reading

If you want to read more about pubs and pub culture, here are some great blogs on the subject you may wish to explore.