The stumbling point would be if it also serves nationally branded keg beers and/or spirits.Originally Posted by Thuck Phat
The stumbling point would be if it also serves nationally branded keg beers and/or spirits.
It wouldn't be a micropub! Many of them bar the use of mobile phones etc.Ah the joy of prescriptive rules about who can and can't join the club!
If I ran a micropub I would definitely show some sports - but of a minority pursuit. Easy way to get in some customers who otherwise would be watching at home! I'd also play music of a classical and jazz variety at other times.
I would be satan
The Masons microbar is clearly a small Sports Bar and is making no pretence of anything else.
The bloke in the Worthing Anchored was not happy with micropubs that had a formal bar saying they aren't "proper" micropubs.
...and already it's started: that one's not a micropub because they do this and don't do that! Sports, sir? You cannot be serious! An easy way to p*ss off customers who might otherwise have called in for a drink.Ah the joy of prescriptive rules about who can and can't join the club!
If I ran a micropub I would definitely show some sports - but of a minority pursuit. Easy way to get in some customers who otherwise would be watching at home! I'd also play music of a classical and jazz variety at other times.
I would be satan
The Beer House has a quiz on Wednesdays.
Stanley's Alehouse (review to follow) has background music.
Walkley Beer Co. calls itself an off-licence (although I've called both this and The Beer House "Sheffield's first micropub", so I guess I'll have to amend one review or the other.)
Come On You Hatters!
I don't see that a weekly quiz is a problem, I assume they don't need to use an amplifier for the quiz host.
Stanley's Ale House use of background music is not compatible but do they compund that by selling national keg brands or having electronic machines?
The two micropubs in Essex are as much off licences as micropubs but the important thing is that there is the option to drink the bottles on site rather than take away instead of the cask offerings.
TV screens go totally against the original concept.
As you now seem to be the judge and jury as to what is a micro pub or not i thought i had better run this one past you for judgement The Barrel Drop, it is on two levels which might condem it to normal pubdome and there is background music and god forbid food,i await your judgement.
We are all equal,but some are more equal than others
'A Micropub is a small freehouse which listens to its customers, mainly serves cask ales, promotes conversation, shuns all forms of electronic entertainment and dabbles in traditional pub snacks' - http://micropubassociation.co.uk/#
Personallly I like this definition as it pretty much delivers what I look for in a pub. The Barrel Drop appears to meet most of it, WhatPub says bar snacks and calls the background music "unobtrusive" but doesn't say if it's electronic or a bloke fiddling in the corner.
I didn't make the definition as OB confirms. A TV screen is clearly electronic entertainment. The spirit behind the micropub would suggest that they shouldn't be selling your least favourite beer (John Smith's Smooth crap) or for example Heineken lager. The fact that your Barrel Drop is on two floors is irrelevant as it makes it a larger two storey micropub but if there are fruit machines and TV screens all over the place then it isn't a micropub.
I would have thought that the whole point of the new feature is to highlight places that for whatever reason don't appear on the Association list but do fit in with the original concept, so that means small Sports Bars (of which there are many) do not count.
The issue we are all going have - irrespective of our rattlings above - is that the micropub market will, like any concept in a capitalist free market economy, have people who use the term but do one or two things that make the purists spit feathers for differentiation/local market/be damned reasons
See 'craft beer' as the previous beer-related example. Or 'Black IPA'
It's all good as it means innovation. And if that means better beers in decent little alehouses, then it's fine by me and 99% of the ale-drinking population.
Last edited by Quinno; 18-03-2015 at 19:27.
Good definition, but is http://www.pubsgalore.co.uk/pubs/59104/ a micro?No fizz,no grub,good beer and chat,but in a timehonoured pub building.
"At that moment I would have given a kingdom, not for champagne or hock and soda, or hot coffee but for a glass of beer" Marquess Curzon of Kedlestone, Viceroy of India.
no. Its a small pub.
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