It's Time to Rewrite the Story of the British Pub.

Since the budget the national conversation, the entire zeitgeist, around the Future of Pubs has changed, what used to be described as “pressure” or “challenging conditions” or 'a perfect storm for pubs' is now being called an existential crisis. When the national mood shifts like this it’s time to stop, look around, and look back properly at what's been happening to OUR pubs over the course of our lives.

In 1995 I opened my first pub in Camberwell, South East London. It’s now 2026. It's thirty years inside the tied pub system. For most of that time, the public explanation for pub closures has been simple and neat: people drink less, tastes change, lifestyles evolve, it’s cultural, it’s inevitable. But that explanation has never been sufficient.

In 2004, under serious financial pressure, still recovering from the impact of 'losing' my first rent review in 2000, and the costs of operating expecting my second rent review to put me out of business, I started a blog called They Got Me Over a Barrel. At the top of it I wrote:

Pubs are closing all over Britain yet pubs are places that most people love and think fondly of as some of the most significant, treasured, iconic parts of our culture, places to be cherished, nurtured and looked after. Yet they're closing everywhere... WHY? It doesn't make sense does it?

More than twenty years later, that question still stands.

If we are serious about understanding what is happening now, we have to go back. Back to the 1989 Beer Orders. Back to the break-up of the old brewery estates. Back to the rise of the pubcos and leveraged consolidation. Back to decades of deferred maintenance. Back to tied leases that banks will not lend against. Back to ownership changing above operators without their consent. Back to the disappearance of any meaningful national representation for tied tenants.

For thirty years I have lived inside this structure — as an operator who turned failing pubs into busy ones, as someone who nearly went under when ownership shifted above me, and as someone who has been involved in reform efforts and parliamentary engagement.

 What is unfolding now did not start this year. It is the cumulative result of decisions made over decades.

We need to rewrite the story of the British pub over the last fifty years, not romantically and not nostalgically, but structurally. The cultural story on its own is incomplete. The financial and contractual architecture matters. If we don’t understand how the system has operated, we won’t understand why the outcomes look the way they do.

This moment of crisis is also a moment to take stock. If we are prepared to examine the last fifty years honestly — with data, with evidence, with lived experience, and with receipts — then we have a chance not only to explain what has happened, but to ask what the pub sector should look like in the 21st century.

I’m currently working on a long-form piece that sets out that arc in detail. Before publishing it in full, I’m putting this out as a marker. If you work in the sector — publican, analyst, historian, regulator, brewer, economist — I’d welcome your input. What have we collectively missed? Where is the evidence strongest? Where does it need strengthening?

If pubs really are facing an existential moment, then this is the time to tell the story properly — and to decide what comes next.