The Rise of the Micropub

July 2, 2015 9:54 AM

It began with Martyn Hillier turning a butcher's (The Butcher's Arms) shop into the first micropub in the UK in 2005. Soon the Kent country- and citysides spawned a new movement in the traditional English pub - the micropub.

The micropub is a throwback to what pubs were before fruit machines and karaoke: a community watering hole. Championed by CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale), you can find micropubs springing up outside of Kent. Here's a growing list if you fancy a visit and a pint and a chat.

After all, the micropub might be the answer to the Guardian's lament of the death of the quick pint.

posted by Kitteh (32 comments total)

Addendum: I discovered the micropub phenomenon on my recent trip to Kent. I have personally visited about five of the ones listed. I fell in love with them. It was a really wonderful experience and I hope to see the micropub scene thrive as that is how I would like to do my drinking on future UK visits. I have been waiting to do an FPP about this for nearly two months!
posted by Kitteh at 9:56 AM on July 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

Fellow Americans, a fruit machine is a slot machine.
posted by maryr at 10:22 AM on July 2, 2015 [13 favorites]

John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
Of noble enterprise;
For if you do but taste his blood,
'Twill make your courage rise.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:01 AM on July 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

Funny: the micropub that just opened near my dad's place is quite definitely big into food. They have great fries, actually. And unlike the pubs in the New Statesman article, they certainly play recorded music (so loud that I had to ask them to turn it down, and next time I'll try to sit on the patio).

So: I'm not sure the concept of "micropub" is translating to the US very well...
posted by suelac at 11:05 AM on July 2, 2015

Funny: the micropub that just opened near my dad's place is quite definitely big into food.

How big is that on the inside? That looks like a normal size for a bar from the outside, to me. How big are these micropubs usually?
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:07 AM on July 2, 2015

This is fantastic. I wonder if you could wrap the entire room in a Faraday cage to further defend against interrupting good conversations.
posted by nickggully at 11:08 AM on July 2, 2015

You know who wasn't pleased about the recent surge in micropubs?
posted by Smart Dalek at 11:08 AM on July 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

That looks like a normal size for a bar from the outside, to me.

Yeah, I found the branding a bit puzzling -- what's the difference between this and your average beer bar, except for the "I invented this concept in 2012" branding?
posted by effbot at 11:11 AM on July 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

How big is that on the inside?

Pretty small. Seats... maybe 20 indoors, same outside.

Frankly, I think the reason they called it a micropub is that it's small. It has a television on the wall for sports, and plays music, and serves (pretty good) food -- California interpretations of British pub food. It doesn't really match up with the definition I gathered from the FPP articles.
posted by suelac at 11:12 AM on July 2, 2015

So: I'm not sure the concept of "micropub" is translating to the US very well...

I'm not sure they could. There are a lot of locales that require a significant portion of the establishment's income to come from non-booze sales. Cursed Puritans and Prohibitioners!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:13 AM on July 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

How do the size of micropubs compare to the average bar in NYC? From the photos they seem to be basically the same size.
posted by griphus at 11:14 AM on July 2, 2015

Oh, okay, that's genuinely small; the picture makes it seem bigger to me, but I'm also not expecting somewhere to be 50% outdoor seating.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:15 AM on July 2, 2015

A Micropub is a small freehouse which listens to its customers, mainly serves cask ales,

So they serve warm beer, then. That's a shame. The rest of the idea sounds great.
posted by shmegegge at 11:17 AM on July 2, 2015

The micropubs I went to were about the size of a large room, maybe one to two hundred square feet. Enough to accomodate at least four four-top tables. One of the ones in Dover I went to was slightly larger, had the same amount of four-top tables, and a small seating area with one easy chair and small loveseat.

It is not a micropub if there is served food, TVs, loud music.
posted by Kitteh at 11:18 AM on July 2, 2015

Fellow Americans, a fruit machine is a slot machine.

A highly unscrupulous friend from Coventry had me totally convinced for at least 20 minutes that a fruit machine was a machine into which one placed fruit and 50p in coins and which would produce fruit jerky, aka fruit roll-ups.

it's been like 20 years and i am still mad about this
posted by poffin boffin at 11:19 AM on July 2, 2015 [16 favorites]

I regret that I do not even have intoxication to blame for this.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:20 AM on July 2, 2015 [3 favorites]

Another bonus for me was that all of the ones I went to were owned and run by women, who were very keen to make the lone female beer drinker feel comfortable and not harassed by any potential male conversationalists.
posted by Kitteh at 11:22 AM on July 2, 2015 [3 favorites]

I regret that your friend was lying. Fruit roll-ups would have been a real improvement on most pub food I've eaten.
posted by Kreiger at 11:23 AM on July 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

Did you drink your weak lemon drink, poffin?
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:04 PM on July 2, 2015 [3 favorites]

I went in a micro pub in Nottingham that's, as far as I can tell, a converted chemists. The area behind the counter where they would dispense medicine is where the barrels are now kept and the beer served. The were tables in the shop area that seated about twenty and they brought out your beer to your table on a tray. Was an early weekend evening and it was rammed with studenty and alternative types. Good beer too.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:12 PM on July 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

I like this. I was in the UK in May and went to one the Brewdog locations in Glasgow and Cask in London and it was pretty cool. The rest of the pubs were total ugh.
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:41 PM on July 2, 2015

I love this concept, never heard of it before.

At the other end of the micro-macro spectrum, this is opening across the street from my office. Pray for my liver.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:20 PM on July 2, 2015

Check out The Temple, a former public toilet in central Manchester, UK. The jukebox is all killer, no filler.
posted by devious truculent and unreliable at 1:35 PM on July 2, 2015

Possible culture clash here -- it's really uncommon for bars or restaurants in the USA to be anything other than one open room (of varying size, but non-food-focused bars are usually pretty small) and when I first visited the UK I was totally charmed by all the multi-room pubs. They really provide that ensconcing-yourself-in-a-corner experience that's crucial to the enjoyment of drinking anywhere in a bar but at the bar.
posted by ostro at 2:33 PM on July 2, 2015 [3 favorites]

You should all come to Cornwall, it may not be diverse in any other way but there's plenty of different beers, mostly local, bags of quality. This is the view from my local.
posted by biffa at 2:43 PM on July 2, 2015 [4 favorites]

The big disadvantage micropubs have against larger pubs is that you can't sneak into a micropub for a pee.
posted by fonetik at 3:22 PM on July 2, 2015

In my recent trips to England, I have noticed that the local pubs have started to become very alike. The same beers, TVs everywhere (I don't care for bars with TVs no matter where I am because inevitably you end up competing with your company for their attention), etc. I think this is why this concept has charmed me. I end up talking to strangers who are friendly and interesting--which is saying something for a person with anxiety--or I can read in peace. I don't think you could do a proper Kent-style micropub in the US. North American bar culture feels very different than UK pub culture, imo.
posted by Kitteh at 3:29 PM on July 2, 2015

Even smaller are pub sheds. Of course, then you may turn into Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson.
posted by jenkinsEar at 6:37 PM on July 2, 2015

In my recent trips to England, I have noticed that the local pubs have started to become very alike. The same beers, TVs everywhere

There's a movie about this.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:09 PM on July 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

In my recent trips to England, I have noticed that the local pubs have started to become very alike. The same beers, TVs everywhere

At the other extreme to the micropub trend has been the rise of the almighty 'spoons aka Wetherspoons
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:29 AM on July 3, 2015

Weatherspoons = identikit pubs.
posted by Kitteh at 3:20 AM on July 3, 2015

I guess this phenomenon is kind of aided by the fact that many older British pubs—especially in London—tend to be ridiculously tiny anyway: witnesses to the fact that in the past, people were shorter. The experience of going to many of them is like trying to drink in a dollhouse surrounded by 120 of your best friends from Big Four audit firms.
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:39 AM on July 3, 2015