Chain Pubs

[NickDavies]

I also always name the the if I know what it is, but many chain pubs on the high street have no mention in any of their literature of who owns/manages the pub.

They can be very secretive, and with good reason. M&B often do their best to hide their ownership. This was once an ancient coaching inn before they FUBARd it:

http://www.thebellgodstone.co.uk/

Own web address, a few sister pubs, just a local chain? But click on Terms and Conditions (ignoring doomed attempt by staff to look decorative):

http://www.thebellgodstone.co.uk/terms-and-conditions/ and the game is up.

Another example

http://www.homecountiespubs.co.uk/dukeofyork/ - again you might think they are a reasonably wholesome regional chain but click around a bit and you find they are related to Brunning and Price and thus part of The Restaurant Group, famous for such horrors as Frankie and Benny's and Garfunkel's. No wonder they keep quiet about it.

[Conrad]

Looking at the bottoms of their menus to see the small print and you will frequently find the chain written there.

[Strongers]

Looking at the bottoms of their menus to see the small print and you will frequently find the chain written there.

If it is not obvious this is the first place I look, but alas many a time the name is missing.

[runningdog]

The Duke of York might be a cheap place to eat, the Pie and Mash seems to be free and there's no ale to tempt you into having a beer..........

[Alesonly]

Looking at the bottoms of their menus to see the small print and you will frequently find the chain written there.

As I said in another thread recently Wetherspoons seem too be copying this with there new Yellow & Gold Menus No where on the menu dose it say Wetherspoons only in the small print on the back. Ive Also noticed the signage on the Pubs that they have just decorated on the outside its now all in Black & Gold with Freehouse In larger letters and Wetherspoons in small letters if at all..

[Old Blue]

As a fairly new user of this excellent site, and a novice pub reviewer, I'd also find it very useful to be able readily to see the 'chain' to which a pub belongs. However, I'm not sure where this might end up.

Some complications down the road I suspect. Are we talking about branding, ownership, or beer supply? Different and occasionally conflicting things. Do we intend just to identify homogenous chains of plastic pubs (sorry JDW) or do we envisage ending up with all non-independents being identified by way of a brewery or PubCo label? Would this be useful information or detract unhelpfully from the individuality of pubs within those empires that allow automony? And would, for example, an independently owned pub that got its main supplies from a particular brewery get that brewery's label?

I also wonder whether we could end up unwittingly promoting the chains to the detriment of independents. I see independence as a virtue in itself, and in an ideal world I guess labelling them as "Independent" would help address this. But I don't see how we could make that work, given the difficulty in defining the term, and in distinguishing between genuine independents and those which masquerade as such but are actually owned by fiendish investment banks whose long term plans have nothing to do with proper beer.

Maybe I'm overcomplicating this and the best way forward is to start identifying some obvious chains and see how it goes. But I'd much appreciate others' views on this.

[Al 10000]

I dont think any chain pub should have their name at the top of a pub listing i think its fair enough for these to be named in a review.

Regarding chain pubs Conrad would have a full time job keeping up with their constant name changing,having read some reviews in the London area Taylor Walker are making a come back did'nt they have something to with Ind Coope years ago!! and i car'nt ever remember them brewing beer and i am not far off 50 years old.

Most of these pub chains belong to a larger chain at the end of the day, i see lots of reviews and posts about Nicholsons i am sure they are not a chain on their own.

These pubcos or chains only started after the beer orders in the late 80s stated that no brewery should own more than 2000 pubs (not sure if that figure is correct)so what did the large brewerys do they closed the brewery down and created a Pub Co or chain pub and these ex large brewerys did'nt have to dispose any of their pubs and today they probably have a larger amount of pubs than they did back in the late 80s.
This makes me very thinking about it and this is the reason i have over the years tried to do as many independant brewery pubs as possible.

[Rex_Rattus]

Welcome to the club Saki; good to have you on board. You're right, some pubs will be very difficult, if not impossible, to categorise. But where it is possible, specifically in the case of J D Wetherspoon, I find it very useful information, and my view is that we shouldn't let the fact that some pubs are difficult to categorise prevent us from categorising those chain pubs where the provenance is straightforward. But this is about the pub's heading on its page, and earlier in the thread you can see where Conrad has articulated his take on the issue. But however this pans out, we can always say in our reviews what if anything we know about who owns or runs the pub; whose beer it sells, etc etc. I always tend to do this in my reviews, as do most others, as I reckon this sort of thing can be very useful for potential visitors.

[Farway]

On a positive note about chain pubs, whilst the corporate branding may stop them supplying real ales, local brews etc it also means they are normally disabled / child / car parking / food / coffee friendly, which to many is an asset, thus naming the chain in the listing helps many, and as said before, serves as a warning to others

Not all pub users want real ale, or even alcohol, some just want a cup of coffee, maybe a sandwich and a chat, thus CAMRA likes will conflict with Mumsnet I suspect

[oldboots]

It can be extremely difficult to know who owns which pub. In our neck of the woods an unmarked pub is likely to be a Sam Smiths but might be a freehouse or a Punch Tavern. Black Sheep and Theakstons have their name on lots of pubs but only own one and two respectively. Enterprise and Ember are usually easy to spot and there are some surpising pubs in the Enterprise chain. Punch and Admiral, amongst others, often sell tranches of pubs they can't find mugs to run, sometimes they own a pub but lease to other chains/small brewers (see the Fleece in Otley). I like the warning given about JDW (is that make it six?) and I try to indicate the owner/chain in the reviews where I can.

BTW I remember the seventies when Watneys painted their pubs any colour but red and took down all their corporate branding after the Red Revolution failed.