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The Delightful History of Pubs · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:14
Speaker 1: and there's Charles Depe, Chuck Bryant and Jerry's here. I'm
0:18
Speaker 1: mute and this is stuff you should know. Good day.
0:25
Speaker 1: Why are you doing in Australian greeting? There's pubs in Australia. Okay, okay,
0:31
Speaker 1: fair enough, Okay. Did you uh had a really great
0:36
Speaker 1: pub experience in Manchester? I know you told me about it.
0:40
Speaker 1: Was it the one I can't remember the name of
0:42
Speaker 1: it where Morrissey? What had his Heather the Smith's sad
0:46
Speaker 1: that photo shoot? Or was that just in the same
0:48
Speaker 1: story that probably the same story that was outside of
0:51
Speaker 1: the Salford Lads Club, very famous photo. But I wandered
0:58
Speaker 1: inside a gin you in old school, uh like basement
1:03
Speaker 1: cask Ale pub in Manchester and it was great and
1:09
Speaker 1: authentic and on such a lean like I've never seen
1:13
Speaker 1: a floor of this slanted in my life. That wasn't
1:15
Speaker 1: like a house of tricks. Oh, I remember that. And
1:20
Speaker 1: then in the end of Greece, I don't know a
1:23
Speaker 1: long time because you need a man, I don't remember that.
1:28
Speaker 1: Did they go into a leaning house, yeah, I believe
1:30
Speaker 1: they do, or a bounty house or really something like that. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah.
1:34
Speaker 1: This one is so leany that you felt like if
1:36
Speaker 1: you were in the front of the pub and put
1:39
Speaker 1: your point on a table, it may actually slide. Wow.
1:44
Speaker 1: It was really leaning. So the point of going to
1:46
Speaker 1: this pub was to get so bent that everything straightened
1:50
Speaker 1: out for you. I don't know. No, I had a
1:52
Speaker 1: couple of beers. It was just great, and I just
1:55
Speaker 1: I'm a sucker for for that kind of stuff, really
1:58
Speaker 1: old places and having a beer in an old place. Yeah,
2:00
Speaker 1: I love it, definitely. Yeah. I had a couple of
2:03
Speaker 1: nice pub experiences too. I went to one I can't remember.
2:05
Speaker 1: It was in Dublin, right down from the Guinness Factory,
2:09
Speaker 1: and don't remember the name of it, but it was
2:12
Speaker 1: super old, very it was a really old pub and um,
2:17
Speaker 1: I wish I could remember the name, but shout out
2:19
Speaker 1: to the that pub. I can't remember. But I'm with you,
2:23
Speaker 1: and I think it's not just us who appreciate pubs
2:26
Speaker 1: for their homeliness, Um and Chuck. I believe that what
2:30
Speaker 1: you went to would be called a local, a traditional
2:34
Speaker 1: independent English pub, a neighborhood pub, and um pub we
2:39
Speaker 1: should say short for public house to the few people
2:42
Speaker 1: who didn't know that, now you do. And these things
2:45
Speaker 1: are so pubs are so um essential to England into Ireland,
2:52
Speaker 1: as we'll find too that the essay is Hilaire Bellock
2:56
Speaker 1: wrote that when you have lost your ins, mean pubs
3:00
Speaker 1: for all intensive purposes, drown your empty selves, for you
3:04
Speaker 1: have lost the last of England. I love it. Yeah,
3:09
Speaker 1: So where do we get pubs from the Romans? Uh? Uh?
3:15
Speaker 1: It is true, Um, before there was a United Kingdom
3:18
Speaker 1: and there was Roman occupation. We're talking about forty three
3:22
Speaker 1: to four ten CE. That was we talked a lot
3:25
Speaker 1: about Roman roads and how their big network of roads
3:27
Speaker 1: and that was one of their big accomplishments, linking places together.
3:31
Speaker 1: And so along these routes they had what we're called
3:34
Speaker 1: tavern a t a b E r in a e
3:37
Speaker 1: what we know is taverns and it was what you think,
3:39
Speaker 1: it's like a place where a traveler can stop, have
3:43
Speaker 1: little food and and these establishments have wine. Yeah, because
3:48
Speaker 1: the Romans were not so for wine pretty much wine
3:53
Speaker 1: no forever right, So um, the way that you would
3:58
Speaker 1: know what house to stop him, because this isn't a
4:01
Speaker 1: time where they were, you know, designing shopping malls and
4:04
Speaker 1: strip centers, like the tavern looked a lot like everybody
4:08
Speaker 1: else's house, because it probably was somebody's house. But if
4:11
Speaker 1: you were a new in town traveling along this Roman
4:14
Speaker 1: road and you wanted to figure out which place was
4:17
Speaker 1: the actual tavern, you would just look for, um, some
4:21
Speaker 1: grape vines hanging over the door. That was the basically
4:25
Speaker 1: the universal symbol among Roman occupied areas for a tavern.
4:29
Speaker 1: But when they pushed further and further west, when they
4:33
Speaker 1: got to England and occupied it, they said, well, there's
4:37
Speaker 1: not that many grape vines here, what else can we
4:39
Speaker 1: we use them? They started using bushes, right. Uh. And
4:43
Speaker 1: you know, we'll talk a little bit all over the
4:45
Speaker 1: place about the interesting pub names, because that's kind of
4:48
Speaker 1: one of the fun things about pubs is their interesting names. Uh.
4:51
Speaker 1: And if you see pubs name the bush or the
4:54
Speaker 1: bull and the bush or the holly bush, Uh, it's
4:57
Speaker 1: sort of thrown back to this old tradition where they
5:00
Speaker 1: would hang stuff above the door to let you know,
5:02
Speaker 1: come on in and have a drink. Right, pretty great,
5:05
Speaker 1: That's it's kind of what all pub lore circles back
5:08
Speaker 1: to is how awesome their names are? So what happened
5:13
Speaker 1: to the Romans? Chuck? Did they stick around? And is
5:16
Speaker 1: there a Roman president of the UK today? No, they
5:20
Speaker 1: left and the Anglo Saxons took over and they liked
5:23
Speaker 1: to drink ale. Yeah, they said to this wine stuff.
5:28
Speaker 1: We were just pretending all this time to like wine
5:30
Speaker 1: while the Romans were here. We actually like ale. And
5:33
Speaker 1: the Anglo Saxons I didn't realize this. I was like, okay,
5:37
Speaker 1: what's the difference between the Anglo Saxons and the Normans
5:40
Speaker 1: and the Vikings? And apparently there's plenty of differences. The Normans,
5:44
Speaker 1: I guess, came up to conquer Um and I think
5:47
Speaker 1: ten sixties six from the south from France, but they
5:51
Speaker 1: originally still were Germanic Um they were they I think
5:56
Speaker 1: they had some Norse people mixed in. So like I said, okay,
6:00
Speaker 1: well who who you who lived in England originally? And
6:03
Speaker 1: apparently it was the Celtic Britons. Okay, so this is
6:08
Speaker 1: this is the first group that came in after the Romans.
6:11
Speaker 1: The Romans came and conquered the Celtic Britons. They left
6:15
Speaker 1: and I don't think I'm saying that right, because they like,
6:18
Speaker 1: I have a tick or something like that. Um and
6:22
Speaker 1: uh they were so. Then the Romans subsequently left and
6:26
Speaker 1: the Anglo Saxons came in and replaced them. And the
6:29
Speaker 1: Anglo Saxons were the ones who said, let's all start
6:32
Speaker 1: drinking some ale. That's right, and aile is not beer.
6:35
Speaker 1: Ale didn't have hops, which is the big differentiator there.
6:39
Speaker 1: Hops would come along later. Uh, and people still like
6:42
Speaker 1: that ale. But people also liked the beer for sure.
6:46
Speaker 1: I think it was the Dutch who said, hey, you
6:49
Speaker 1: should try these hops, man, they'll knock your socks off.
6:52
Speaker 1: And when they did in the fifteenth century, Um, the
6:56
Speaker 1: Britons said, well, let's let's do this where kay with
7:00
Speaker 1: alef or We're okay with hops from now on, we're
7:02
Speaker 1: like beer. They said, it did knock my socks off
7:04
Speaker 1: because I'm wear shot garters. Right. But they loved Ale
7:09
Speaker 1: so much that it was like a part of their
7:12
Speaker 1: like like their meals. Whenever they drank something, they usually
7:16
Speaker 1: drank ale. Um. And I think we talked about this
7:21
Speaker 1: in the beer episode. I don't remember bars maybe maybe,
7:26
Speaker 1: but if you were a housewife, housewife, um, you were
7:31
Speaker 1: probably in charge of making ale for your family. And
7:35
Speaker 1: if you were really good at making ale, the town
7:38
Speaker 1: might know about it, and they might come and try
7:40
Speaker 1: to buy some of your excess ale, and you might
7:43
Speaker 1: end up supplying ale to thirsty travelers who passed through,
7:47
Speaker 1: and the next thing you know, you're running what's known
7:49
Speaker 1: as the ale house. That's right. They were called ale
7:52
Speaker 1: wives or brewsters. And if you want to indicate, like
7:56
Speaker 1: the Romans hung the grapevines and bushes and things above
7:59
Speaker 1: the air door. Uh, they would have an ale steak
8:02
Speaker 1: or an ale pole, which sort of from this drawing
8:05
Speaker 1: Dave sent Dave Russ helped us with this. Uh, you
8:10
Speaker 1: just give Dave a wou sure. Uh, it looks sort
8:13
Speaker 1: of like a witch's broom. It was a big stick
8:16
Speaker 1: with branches tied to the end and they would hang
8:19
Speaker 1: it out a window or above the doorway like a
8:21
Speaker 1: flagpole over the doorway, kind of sticking out of the house.
8:24
Speaker 1: And that meant come on end and have a drink. Yeah,
8:28
Speaker 1: and you you would like that like this is it
8:31
Speaker 1: was really important to the Anglo Saxons and other subsequent
8:35
Speaker 1: groups that kind of came over and took over England
8:37
Speaker 1: to say like like the hospitality is really really important, um,
8:43
Speaker 1: And they actually started to kind of regulate it a
8:46
Speaker 1: little bit in part because ale houses became so popular
8:49
Speaker 1: that they're like, this is something we can tax, but
8:51
Speaker 1: also we don't want um any kind of social issues
8:54
Speaker 1: arising from this. So I think it was King Edward
8:57
Speaker 1: the Peaceful Um who started path saying like the first
9:01
Speaker 1: uh laws that regulated drinking establishments in England. Yeah, and
9:06
Speaker 1: he said, hey, how about one of these in every
9:08
Speaker 1: town or village And he said and everyone went, okay,
9:13
Speaker 1: I guess we can live with that, but I don't
9:15
Speaker 1: think but I don't think it was just too limited.
9:17
Speaker 1: I think it was also to make sure that there
9:19
Speaker 1: was at least one in every town, that every town
9:21
Speaker 1: had one to like, there were probably towns that didn't
9:23
Speaker 1: have and they're like, you need to get on the trolley. Yeah,
9:26
Speaker 1: some people are probably like hooray. And then towns that
9:28
Speaker 1: had more than one went okay, yeah, we gotta flip
9:31
Speaker 1: a coin. Yeah exactly. Uh. And then he also moved
9:35
Speaker 1: on to say and maybe we shouldn't drink as much
9:38
Speaker 1: as people and everyone went way at a minute, like
9:43
Speaker 1: we've been drinking ale for breakfast literally, uh. And he said,
9:47
Speaker 1: how about this thing. It's called a peg tankard, and
9:50
Speaker 1: it's a it's a big like two lead uh drinking
9:53
Speaker 1: vessel that has these pegs, vertical pegs and you're only
9:56
Speaker 1: allowed to drink down to the next peg, and then
9:59
Speaker 1: you gotta pass it along to your friend and then
10:01
Speaker 1: they can drink down to the next bag. And if
10:03
Speaker 1: you drink past your peg, then your tax too. Penny. Yeah,
10:07
Speaker 1: it was a super hygienic setup. Yeah, and two leaders,
10:11
Speaker 1: I mean that's not that much. Well, I don't mean
10:14
Speaker 1: for like per person, but like they think about it,
10:16
Speaker 1: two leaders or soda? How many people were sharing that? Sure? Sure,
10:19
Speaker 1: I mean like you know too, three four? All right,
10:24
Speaker 1: so a leaders thirty two ounces? Yeah, so it's about
10:30
Speaker 1: two points no points sixteen ounces? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right.
10:38
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was about two points. No, I'm thinking
10:40
Speaker 1: of a court. I think a court and a leader
10:42
Speaker 1: are pretty close. Regardless, you're right, it's not that much.
10:45
Speaker 1: It's a couple of forties. Man, oh man, I've had
10:51
Speaker 1: a forty since college. It's been a while. Sat Id's
10:58
Speaker 1: I had sat Id's at least's been says that great
11:00
Speaker 1: song st Iights Heaven um My jam was not forties,
11:05
Speaker 1: but I would for a little while in college I
11:06
Speaker 1: would drink schlitz or And I know I mentioned this
11:10
Speaker 1: before the Mickey's big mouth. Yeah sure, but I can't
11:14
Speaker 1: imagine drinking that swill. Now, That's what I was gonna say.
11:18
Speaker 1: Even at the time, st IDs was terrible stuff. Yeah,
11:21
Speaker 1: I never understood. Even among the malt liquors that came
11:24
Speaker 1: in bottles, IDs was gross. What was the eight ball?
11:29
Speaker 1: Old English? Old English? Yes, I think that may have
11:33
Speaker 1: been tied with st Nights. It was all pretty gross. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:39
Speaker 1: The early drinking days are just nothing to be proud of. No,
11:44
Speaker 1: it's like you call this orange juice, you call this
11:46
Speaker 1: a cape cod right. Uh, but now we're more refined
11:51
Speaker 1: in our old age, and we drink very tasteful small cocktails. Sure,
11:55
Speaker 1: forty ounces at a time. I've actually dialed it back
11:57
Speaker 1: to almost nothing these days. Uh yeah, get better sleep, yeah,
12:03
Speaker 1: and better next days. Really, but yeah, better sleep too.
12:06
Speaker 1: That's where the next days. To me. That's why I
12:08
Speaker 1: was just like, this is not this is not okay. Yeah, yeah,
12:12
Speaker 1: it's good as you get older that you gotta gotta
12:14
Speaker 1: dial that back. Didn't you say you don't get affected
12:17
Speaker 1: by it very much like hangovers. Yeah, I don't really
12:21
Speaker 1: get that hungover, and if I do, then I willingly
12:24
Speaker 1: wade into those waters. Oh I see, you know, like
12:28
Speaker 1: I know what's coming and I'm like, you just one
12:30
Speaker 1: one of those nights. But yeah, those are few and
12:32
Speaker 1: far between these days. You schedule a blood transfusion for
12:34
Speaker 1: the next morning, No, no, no, uh? Should we take
12:39
Speaker 1: a break? Yeah, let's take a break and then we'll
12:41
Speaker 1: go to the Emerald Aisle right after this. All right,
12:43
Speaker 1: let's do it. Are we in Ireland? We are in
13:06
Speaker 1: Ireland here, yep. Um. So they had their own kind
13:11
Speaker 1: of pub culture, despite the fact that the Anglo Saxons
13:14
Speaker 1: never made it into Ireland, which I didn't realize. Um,
13:18
Speaker 1: but they they devised their own kind of um system
13:22
Speaker 1: of hospitality as well. Like the Anglo Saxons to that said, Hey,
13:25
Speaker 1: if you've got people coming around your town, you need
13:27
Speaker 1: to make sure that you can take care of them.
13:30
Speaker 1: That's right. And what is the law pronounced? How is
13:32
Speaker 1: it pronounced? Bron okay b r e h o N.
13:36
Speaker 1: Is that what you're gonna go with? R Briton. I'm
13:40
Speaker 1: sure we're pronouncing that wrong, but that was sort of
13:44
Speaker 1: the system of like legal hospitality that you were talking
13:48
Speaker 1: about from originally from the sixth century. Uh, and you
13:53
Speaker 1: know it was it was a lot. It comes a lot,
13:55
Speaker 1: but it definitely put a lot of emphasis on hospitality
13:59
Speaker 1: and kind of like in England they said, hey, uh,
14:02
Speaker 1: every town has to have a hostel, which is also
14:07
Speaker 1: sort of code for pub but you could spend the night.
14:09
Speaker 1: I guess, um, yeah, but this is like I didn't
14:13
Speaker 1: quite understand this. It said I had to be located
14:16
Speaker 1: at the main crossroads with four doors open in each direction.
14:21
Speaker 1: Is that symbolic or did they literally mean like, uh,
14:24
Speaker 1: don't make them walk around the corner to get in.
14:27
Speaker 1: I don't know, and I really don't. Maybe travelers were
14:30
Speaker 1: generally dumber than they are today back then, I'm not sure.
14:33
Speaker 1: But they could only move in straight lines, That's what
14:35
Speaker 1: I said, right. But Um, Additionally, under the law, you
14:39
Speaker 1: had to have and you couldn't have an empty cauldron.
14:43
Speaker 1: It always had to be ready to go with ale.
14:46
Speaker 1: You had to have on hand raw meats and cooked
14:49
Speaker 1: meats ready to serve, also animals ready to slaughter, and
14:53
Speaker 1: that any time traveler showed up twenty four hours a
14:56
Speaker 1: day you had to serve them. That was just the hospital.
15:00
Speaker 1: It was that emphasized. It was almost like the local
15:02
Speaker 1: Chamber of Commerce was in charge of writing the laws
15:05
Speaker 1: for them. Law. I love it. Yeah. Like Backstreet? What's
15:13
Speaker 1: what was that? Remember that club Backstreet that was open
15:16
Speaker 1: twenty four hours and in Atlanta, right, that was the
15:18
Speaker 1: late night place. Yes, but it was like open twenty
15:22
Speaker 1: four hours for real. Yeah. And I didn't go there much.
15:25
Speaker 1: I didn't. I mean I was I was not living
15:27
Speaker 1: in Atlanta during its heyday. This is what I mean
15:30
Speaker 1: to say. I got you that was all about backstreets.
15:33
Speaker 1: I just didn't live there, I see. Uh. So in
15:36
Speaker 1: England we're kind of marching forward through time. I think
15:41
Speaker 1: it was between thirteen and sixteen hundred. This is when
15:44
Speaker 1: things kind of made the shift over those few hundred years,
15:47
Speaker 1: from someone's home where the lady made great ale, uh
15:52
Speaker 1: to an official like licensed what we would call a
15:55
Speaker 1: pub today. Um. I still don't think they were called
15:59
Speaker 1: public houses at the point, right, No, not until the
16:01
Speaker 1: Victorian era in the I think the late nineteenth century,
16:04
Speaker 1: all right, but they were actually licensing places in the
16:07
Speaker 1: fifteen hundreds. Uh. And they made a distinction between the
16:11
Speaker 1: three different kinds of places where you could serve booze.
16:14
Speaker 1: The ale house, which we talked about, Uh, you could
16:17
Speaker 1: only sell ale and beer though. Then you had your
16:19
Speaker 1: taverns which also sold liquor and wine and food, and
16:23
Speaker 1: then the end where you could spend the night. Yeah.
16:26
Speaker 1: And one other really big shift that took place during
16:29
Speaker 1: that time from ale houses to common brewers with licenses
16:33
Speaker 1: was that the licenses were given to men, So the
16:36
Speaker 1: custom of making ale and eventually beer moved from women
16:42
Speaker 1: to men exclusively. Basically it was taken out of women's hands. Yeah,
16:47
Speaker 1: and it feels like an industry that's still very much
16:49
Speaker 1: male dominated, uh, as is the wine industry. But I
16:53
Speaker 1: know there's a lot of support behind female brewers and
16:58
Speaker 1: the wine makers these days, so that's always a good
17:01
Speaker 1: thing to seek out. Yeah, well there should be. But
17:04
Speaker 1: there were a lot of pubs per person back then.
17:08
Speaker 1: Uh there's a census from fifteen fifty seven that basically
17:13
Speaker 1: showed that there was one licensed pub for every one
17:17
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty seven people, whereas it's about one for
17:21
Speaker 1: every six and fifty seven people today, Which I mean
17:24
Speaker 1: if you've been to England anytime recently, like there are
17:27
Speaker 1: a lot of pubs there. Yeah, so to imagine there
17:30
Speaker 1: were that many more back then or that fewer people,
17:34
Speaker 1: I guess is probably the likelier thing. The same amount
17:36
Speaker 1: of pubs, just a lot of fewer people. Yeah. I
17:38
Speaker 1: always love working out dumb stuff in my head live
17:41
Speaker 1: on our episodes. But there's a good example of it. Uh,
17:45
Speaker 1: we had a great episode on gin. I didn't think
17:48
Speaker 1: that was done by the way. It doesn't matter. It's
17:51
Speaker 1: a combination of both. I think, Uh, more pubs in
17:54
Speaker 1: fewer people. I appreciate you. You're being very magnanimous on
17:58
Speaker 1: your birthday. Uh, jin that we had a great episode
18:01
Speaker 1: on gin um. But if you remember from that episode,
18:04
Speaker 1: in the seventeen hundreds, jin became a very sort of
18:08
Speaker 1: evil liquor and there were moves to ban it and
18:11
Speaker 1: limit gin drinking. But while this was going on, beer
18:15
Speaker 1: was on the rise, and and England was all in
18:17
Speaker 1: on beer, basically saying like we're not saying don't drink,
18:20
Speaker 1: we're saying gin is bad and that ale and beer
18:23
Speaker 1: is really good. Yeah, they definitely accepted it from their
18:27
Speaker 1: ire um and there was a there was a really
18:29
Speaker 1: good um. I guess the political cartoon it was to
18:33
Speaker 1: two different panels in it that was produced in the
18:37
Speaker 1: eighteenth century by William Hogarth. I think it came out
18:41
Speaker 1: in se And on one side is Beer Street on
18:45
Speaker 1: the left side. On the right side is a very
18:47
Speaker 1: similar picture, but it's on Jin Lane. And if you
18:51
Speaker 1: look into what's going on in those pictures, they're very
18:55
Speaker 1: two very different pictures, Um and Jin Lane. It's basically
18:59
Speaker 1: like just has been ravaged by gin. There's a mother
19:03
Speaker 1: who's like stop. Her child is toppling over a wall
19:08
Speaker 1: where it had just been breastfeeding because her mom is
19:11
Speaker 1: now like trying to figure out how to buy some gin.
19:14
Speaker 1: There's some children, um fighting over a dog or fighting
19:18
Speaker 1: over a bone with a dog. Um. I think a
19:20
Speaker 1: tradesman is pawning his his tools all for gin. And
19:25
Speaker 1: then if you go over to Beer Street, it's a
19:27
Speaker 1: different different picture altogether. For sure. Yeah, everything's happening on
19:31
Speaker 1: Beer Street. People are working hard, they look good, they're
19:35
Speaker 1: making art, and they're drinking beer. But what's funny is
19:39
Speaker 1: if you look closely on the Beer Street too, there's
19:42
Speaker 1: stuff that's there's there's a there's it's struggling a little
19:46
Speaker 1: bit too. There's like boards over one window. Um, people
19:49
Speaker 1: are definitely crocked. It's just hilarious that they didn't try
19:52
Speaker 1: to make it like perfectly perfect. Like there's still like
19:57
Speaker 1: just some some freight edges around there on Beer Street too.
20:00
Speaker 1: I thought that was kind of funny. And then the
20:02
Speaker 1: third panel was Weed Avenue. Nothing bad was happening there.
20:09
Speaker 1: Everybody's just kind of sitting around. Yeah, there's a lot
20:12
Speaker 1: of PlayStation happening. I forgot what people do what when
20:19
Speaker 1: they spoke pot I can't even come up with a
20:22
Speaker 1: decent joke here. Well, let's move to the Victorian area,
20:28
Speaker 1: the era and area, because that is when we finally
20:32
Speaker 1: get our name the public house, And this is when
20:35
Speaker 1: things really sort of as as did much in the
20:39
Speaker 1: Victorian area. Man, why do we keep saying that the
20:42
Speaker 1: Victorian era took on a shine and a fanciness and
20:47
Speaker 1: these places became pretty swank. Yeah, because while Gin was
20:51
Speaker 1: vilified and run out of town in the middle of
20:54
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century, by the middle of the nineteenth century
20:57
Speaker 1: it had come back, Remember in a different form. Originally
21:00
Speaker 1: was Dutch Gin and then London Dry Gin made its
21:03
Speaker 1: its mark in the nineteenth century. And everybody's like, oh, well,
21:06
Speaker 1: this is fine, we're making it here. And we liked
21:08
Speaker 1: jin again. And so they built Jim palaces starting in
21:12
Speaker 1: the eighteen forties and they were very very nice. They
21:14
Speaker 1: had like marble bars and they were just really well
21:18
Speaker 1: decked out. And um, the pubs started kind of replicating
21:23
Speaker 1: that vibe when they were being built or remodeled or whatever.
21:27
Speaker 1: And so pubs started to add like bars. Apparently they
21:31
Speaker 1: didn't have bars before. I guess it was just all
21:33
Speaker 1: comfortable chairs and like many tables and yeah. Um, and
21:37
Speaker 1: so they added bars at this era as well. Pretty awesome. Uh.
21:42
Speaker 1: In Ireland, you know, if we're again going chronologically around
21:45
Speaker 1: this time, Um, they had some interesting like the pubs
21:50
Speaker 1: over there, and I think this is true to a
21:52
Speaker 1: certain degree in England too, but they were there were
21:55
Speaker 1: more than just the place to go drink. It was
21:57
Speaker 1: sort of the center for public course and activity. Uh.
22:02
Speaker 1: Some of them operated other businesses, like some um acted
22:06
Speaker 1: as banks during the daytime or post offices. Uh. And
22:09
Speaker 1: then there was the Coroners Act of eighteen forty six
22:12
Speaker 1: that basically said pubs have these great cool sellers and uh,
22:18
Speaker 1: that's where dead body should be taken in our village
22:21
Speaker 1: to be stored until the funeral, because every pub has
22:25
Speaker 1: got a very cool basement, and that wasn't just the
22:28
Speaker 1: most common thing at the time and home. So the
22:30
Speaker 1: Corners Act of eighteen forty six, I think, demanded that
22:34
Speaker 1: a dead body was brought to the nearest pub. Yeah,
22:37
Speaker 1: and some publicans, people who own and operate pubs, um said, okay,
22:43
Speaker 1: I can make some money doing that, and they started
22:45
Speaker 1: installing like marble bars in the basement the sellers of
22:49
Speaker 1: their pubs to better accommodate corpses and cadavers that came
22:53
Speaker 1: their way. So they became undertakers as well. And it
22:56
Speaker 1: makes me wonder like how many how many Irish pubs
22:59
Speaker 1: have these marble slabs that the corpses used to be
23:02
Speaker 1: laid out on still today, I would love to see that.
23:05
Speaker 1: That would I can imagine going in for to a
23:07
Speaker 1: pub for a pint and and end up getting a
23:09
Speaker 1: tour like that. Yeah, that'd be really cool. Like you
23:14
Speaker 1: suddenly woke up on Weed Street, Weed Avenue, dang uh
23:20
Speaker 1: and then what about this other thing? This was really cool?
23:22
Speaker 1: I think I love it when someone creates a drinking
23:25
Speaker 1: law that also has a tremendous gaping loophole for people
23:30
Speaker 1: to jump through. Uh, And that was the case in
23:33
Speaker 1: eighteen in the eighteen seventies in Ireland, to kind of
23:37
Speaker 1: tame down the pub scene, they said, all right, you
23:40
Speaker 1: gotta close before midnight and you can only go to
23:44
Speaker 1: these pubs um at any hour if you're what's called
23:48
Speaker 1: a bona fide traveler, which means that you have traveled
23:52
Speaker 1: in good faith at least three miles, like not just
23:56
Speaker 1: three miles to go get your drink, but you're really traveling, right,
24:00
Speaker 1: So some Dublin pubs picked up stakes and moved about
24:04
Speaker 1: three miles outside the town. There anyone in Dublin who
24:08
Speaker 1: went there had to be, by definition traveling, and then
24:11
Speaker 1: it was just a blurry line whether you were a
24:14
Speaker 1: bona fide traveler whatever. So they found that that gaping
24:18
Speaker 1: loophole to drive through, drive their horse and carriage through. Yeah,
24:22
Speaker 1: it's like, uh, it's one of those hard to enforce
24:24
Speaker 1: things like cutting through a gas station to avoid a
24:27
Speaker 1: red light. So you also said, Chuck that, um, the
24:30
Speaker 1: Irish pub served as these like community centers, and English
24:34
Speaker 1: pubs definitely do too. But I feel like the Irish
24:36
Speaker 1: pubs actually kind of codified it with things like the
24:39
Speaker 1: Coroners Act um. But they really served as as even
24:43
Speaker 1: greater community centers, maybe even more vital community centers are
24:47
Speaker 1: vitally needed ones over here in the US. When the
24:51
Speaker 1: Irish started coming over to America beginning in the eighteen forties, UM,
24:56
Speaker 1: they brought with them their knowledge of how to build
24:59
Speaker 1: and operate a pub. So Irish pubs started springing up,
25:02
Speaker 1: and they they very much served as like the glue
25:05
Speaker 1: for the community there. Yeah, taverns especially, UM. I know
25:11
Speaker 1: that here in Atlanta anytime there is a big political
25:15
Speaker 1: discourse and activity, and they need the persons I know,
25:18
Speaker 1: you know what I'm gonna say, they need like the
25:20
Speaker 1: person on the streets take the news cruise will invariably
25:24
Speaker 1: go to Manual's Tavern uh sort of right near the
25:27
Speaker 1: Virginia Highlands in Atlanta. And it's a it's a great
25:30
Speaker 1: old traditional uh sort of American style tavern that's been
25:34
Speaker 1: around for a long time that was owned by a
25:37
Speaker 1: local politician named Manuel Maloof and as a result, he
25:40
Speaker 1: would have events there and it became sort of a
25:43
Speaker 1: sort of just known for political discourse in Atlanta. So
25:46
Speaker 1: that's where the news always goes. I thought you're gonna
25:48
Speaker 1: say they went to Backstreet that's not still open, is it?
25:53
Speaker 1: I don't think so, but they so, Yeah, Manual's man
25:57
Speaker 1: is it manuals? Or Manuel's it's manuals? Okay. So Manuel's
26:01
Speaker 1: Tavern was established in nineteen fifty seven. Seems kind of old,
26:05
Speaker 1: but apparently there's still taverns in operation today that day
26:09
Speaker 1: back to the colonial period, even like there's one in Newport,
26:12
Speaker 1: Rhode Island called the white Horse Tavern that says it's
26:15
Speaker 1: been open since sixteen seventy three. Yes, not the New
26:20
Speaker 1: York white Horse that is two years old or younger?
26:23
Speaker 1: Oh is it? Yeah? I mean you think like the
26:25
Speaker 1: white Horse Tavern, know, it's the oldest thing in New
26:27
Speaker 1: York and not even close because the I guess it's
26:30
Speaker 1: pronounced The Francis Tavern in New York is from uh
26:36
Speaker 1: the seventeen eighties. Yeah, apparently George Washington took his troops
26:42
Speaker 1: there to toast them after the British finally left the
26:46
Speaker 1: North American continent. I've never heard of this place. I
26:49
Speaker 1: was disappointed because I like to try and check out
26:51
Speaker 1: the old haunts in New York, and I thought I
26:54
Speaker 1: knew them all but this one, you know, it's down
26:56
Speaker 1: there in the Financial District at the very lower tip
26:58
Speaker 1: of Manhattan. Than it's just not an area I get to.
27:01
Speaker 1: I came across um a mention of a place called
27:05
Speaker 1: Lafitte's blacksmith Shop down in New Orleans. And it's not
27:09
Speaker 1: a tavern or a pub, but it's supposed to be
27:11
Speaker 1: the oldest bar in the United States, and that it's
27:14
Speaker 1: supposedly dates from SWO and that it was called the
27:18
Speaker 1: blacksmith Shop to throw off the authorities. It was actually
27:21
Speaker 1: not only a bar and a llegal bar, but also
27:24
Speaker 1: a hideout for pirates who would plan and sell their
27:29
Speaker 1: um stolen goods there. And it's still looking to day
27:32
Speaker 1: from what I understand. Have you seen the new pirate
27:34
Speaker 1: show Our Flag means Death? No? Is it any good?
27:39
Speaker 1: It's very funny. We just finished Dope Sick. Did not
27:43
Speaker 1: see that. It's not funny, but it's really good. Uh,
27:48
Speaker 1: what is it? Does it? What's what's the story there?
27:50
Speaker 1: It's about the Sackler family and Produe Pharma and how
27:53
Speaker 1: they created the ooid epidemics single handedly in the United
27:57
Speaker 1: States and does not know it's It's a drama well
28:02
Speaker 1: acted by every single person in it. Incredibly well written,
28:05
Speaker 1: well directed. It just keeps moving through eight episodes. Um,
28:08
Speaker 1: it's on Hulu and it is um Like, it's just
28:14
Speaker 1: nuts to realize that we all just lived through that
28:16
Speaker 1: and didn't know what was going on, and they're just
28:19
Speaker 1: still only waking up to the damage that this this
28:21
Speaker 1: family did. Well. Our Flag Means Death is much more
28:24
Speaker 1: fun than that. I'll check that out. You check out
28:27
Speaker 1: Dope Sick, and I'll check out our Flag means Death. Okay,
28:30
Speaker 1: I guess we should take a break, uh, take our
28:33
Speaker 1: second break and we'll come back and talk about pub
28:35
Speaker 1: names and pub games right after this. All right, names
28:57
Speaker 1: and games. Nice, you're not gonna not gonna bite no,
29:02
Speaker 1: all right. Uh. One of the fun parts about pubs
29:05
Speaker 1: is their names. Um, some of the names at the beginning,
29:09
Speaker 1: like we mentioned the broom that they would put out front.
29:13
Speaker 1: Sometimes they got tired of that and they would just
29:14
Speaker 1: put out other things, uh, like a boot or a
29:18
Speaker 1: copper kettle. And that's where you would have pub names
29:21
Speaker 1: like the boot or the copper kettle, especially if you
29:24
Speaker 1: were um and a literate population at the time, which
29:27
Speaker 1: a lot of people were. For a lot of the
29:29
Speaker 1: history of pubs. Um, you would like you would say
29:33
Speaker 1: I'm going to the Copper Kettle, not because there was
29:35
Speaker 1: a sign that said the Copper Kettle, because they had
29:37
Speaker 1: a copper kettle out like That's that was really helpful
29:42
Speaker 1: in that sense. And then over time, as literacy became
29:45
Speaker 1: more and more widespread, they would they would write the
29:47
Speaker 1: name out and include a picture still for the people
29:50
Speaker 1: who couldn't yet read. Yeah, that's why they had this
29:52
Speaker 1: cool signs. Uh. It's funny, like if there was only
29:56
Speaker 1: one per town, they should just say I'm I'm going
29:58
Speaker 1: to beer, right, That's all they needed to say, going
30:02
Speaker 1: to ale House. But those those pub names, they are
30:05
Speaker 1: really weird in a lot of cases. Even if you
30:07
Speaker 1: are English, you might think some of them are really
30:10
Speaker 1: really weird. Um. And a lot of times you can
30:13
Speaker 1: kind of trace the history of that town or that
30:17
Speaker 1: area through the name of the pub. A lot of
30:20
Speaker 1: times they trace the larger history of England, like the
30:23
Speaker 1: pushing pulled between Catholics and Protestants, the pushing pulled between
30:26
Speaker 1: the monarchy and um, the Cromwell and his cronies during
30:33
Speaker 1: the English Civil War, um. Like they the names kind
30:36
Speaker 1: of reflect these these changes over time in some ways too. Yeah,
30:41
Speaker 1: the I think it was King Richard the lion Heart.
30:43
Speaker 1: During the Crusades, there are a lot of these pubs
30:45
Speaker 1: that were on the routes of the pilgrimages and soldiers
30:49
Speaker 1: making their way over there, and so you would see
30:52
Speaker 1: there was one that's uh I think still around uh
30:56
Speaker 1: called ye Old Trip to Jerusalem, a little on the
30:59
Speaker 1: nose called the Saracen's Head, also on the nose. Yeah,
31:05
Speaker 1: I saw that ye Old Trip to Jerusalem. They have
31:08
Speaker 1: like caves um underneath the actual current structure that they
31:14
Speaker 1: still use for seating today that are definitely dated back
31:18
Speaker 1: to the thirteenth century. Yeah, so I mean like it's
31:22
Speaker 1: legit um some of the other names that kind of
31:25
Speaker 1: have come along. Like I was saying, when when Um
31:28
Speaker 1: Cromwell and his Puritanical people took over and I'm sorry
31:32
Speaker 1: I miss book. That wasn't during the English Civil War.
31:34
Speaker 1: This came later, I believe, Um but Cromwell when when
31:37
Speaker 1: the Puritans took over and deposed the king um that
31:42
Speaker 1: there were a lot of pub owners who said, well,
31:45
Speaker 1: you know, these Puritans aren't super into a lot of
31:48
Speaker 1: the names that we have, like back in Aalia. So
31:51
Speaker 1: that got changed the bag of nails God encompasses us,
31:56
Speaker 1: which is you're You're like, why would they change that
31:59
Speaker 1: that name? Um, and I remembered like the Puritans would
32:03
Speaker 1: have taken that probably is like taking God's name in
32:05
Speaker 1: vain and would have very much frowned on that, Okay,
32:08
Speaker 1: So instead they went with the much less satanic goat encompasses.
32:14
Speaker 1: My favorite is Katharina Fidelis, which is a reference to
32:19
Speaker 1: Queen Catherine of Aragon became Cat and Fiddle because right
32:24
Speaker 1: there in the middle of Hollywood in Los Angeles there
32:27
Speaker 1: is still the Cat and Fiddle pub. Oh yeah, yeah,
32:30
Speaker 1: And it's a place I used to go to and
32:31
Speaker 1: and back then, I don't know if it's still the case,
32:34
Speaker 1: but back then there were um, not rumors, but verified
32:37
Speaker 1: accounts of Morrissey hanging out at the Cat and Fiddle
32:40
Speaker 1: during the day drinking guinness. And he used to always
32:43
Speaker 1: go by there and wonder if he was sitting out, Yeah,
32:45
Speaker 1: would you like to put your hands on the window
32:48
Speaker 1: and look inside. No, they had this great, uh sort
32:52
Speaker 1: of hidden outdoor courtyard off the street that was really
32:56
Speaker 1: really lovely. But uh, I had some really good times
32:58
Speaker 1: at the Cat and fiddle back in the day and
33:00
Speaker 1: still around it think um chook. Another thing that people
33:03
Speaker 1: would do is cast their lot with the monarchy. So
33:07
Speaker 1: you can see just the crown, which I saw that
33:09
Speaker 1: they would consider. They would they would take the name
33:11
Speaker 1: of the crown, because if you did something like the
33:14
Speaker 1: Cat and Fiddle or Cat Catherina Fidelis when that monarch
33:18
Speaker 1: was no longer on the throne, you might have to
33:20
Speaker 1: change your name. But if you just say the Crown,
33:22
Speaker 1: you're basically saying I'm done with the monarchy. Yeah, and
33:26
Speaker 1: a boy. The Crown, I think, is one of the
33:28
Speaker 1: more common pub names. It's number two from what I saw.
33:31
Speaker 1: Number one is red Lion, which comes from all sorts
33:34
Speaker 1: of coats of arms, and royal oak is number three,
33:36
Speaker 1: after the tree that King Charles the Second hid in
33:39
Speaker 1: from Cromwell and his Protestant cronies. I did look up
33:42
Speaker 1: up there are a bunch of websites that have like
33:44
Speaker 1: the top twenty weirdest names or whatever, uh, And I
33:48
Speaker 1: was looking through there was one that was pretty good,
33:51
Speaker 1: like sometimes it was what the people did way back when,
33:55
Speaker 1: and the one called the blacksmith and the toffee maker,
33:58
Speaker 1: so it was kind of on the nose. Can you
34:01
Speaker 1: imagine living in town with like a bona fide toffee maker. Yeah,
34:05
Speaker 1: I U I just lived there. I'd live outside of
34:09
Speaker 1: their house. Once called the job Center and this is
34:13
Speaker 1: in Deptford for real. Yeah, and it was a former
34:17
Speaker 1: job center and they just renamed it the job Center. Uh.
34:21
Speaker 1: And then what is the I can't find the one
34:22
Speaker 1: with a really long name that was kind of fun.
34:24
Speaker 1: Here's one the camel and artichokes, that's pretty fun. Or
34:30
Speaker 1: the pyro technists Arms. Well, that was a big one.
34:34
Speaker 1: So so there was probably a fireworks factory around there
34:38
Speaker 1: that it was built on the side of the fireworks factory. Yeah,
34:41
Speaker 1: so clearly that was a fairly recent one. But it
34:44
Speaker 1: follows a longstanding tradition. Like if you if you served
34:48
Speaker 1: um carpenters, you call your place the carpenter's Arms or
34:52
Speaker 1: the Golden Fleece. If you had like a bunch of
34:55
Speaker 1: woolworkers who frequented your place, or if like you were,
34:59
Speaker 1: if you set up shop to attract like the sporting types,
35:03
Speaker 1: you'd have like the fox and the hound or something
35:05
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, the dog, the lady in the tramp,
35:09
Speaker 1: Lady in the tramp where you can share spaghetti with
35:12
Speaker 1: no silverware. That's right, It's very cute. You end up
35:15
Speaker 1: kissing at the end. So you you said names, but
35:18
Speaker 1: the second half of your titilating rhyme um said games
35:23
Speaker 1: that promised games. What kind of games are you delivering on? Well,
35:28
Speaker 1: of course darts. I used to be quite a dart
35:31
Speaker 1: enthusiast and played in dart leagues. Yeah, through college and
35:35
Speaker 1: then in my post college I guess early two thousand's
35:41
Speaker 1: Atlanta stay. For a few years before I moved back
35:45
Speaker 1: to l A. I was still into darts. I loved it.
35:48
Speaker 1: I think we should do a whole podcast on darts.
35:50
Speaker 1: When I moved to l A, they had nothing but
35:52
Speaker 1: the soft tip electronic game darts, which is no, you
35:56
Speaker 1: can't even do that, so I didn't even bother so
35:58
Speaker 1: I kind of fell out of playing. But my friend Justin,
36:00
Speaker 1: who I've referred to a bunch of you know, still
36:03
Speaker 1: very big into darts, and in one of the best
36:05
Speaker 1: dart players around. He he does uh quite well and
36:09
Speaker 1: like regional tournaments and like stuff. Well does much. Mr
36:14
Speaker 1: fancy pants Justin, who's so good at darts, know that
36:17
Speaker 1: it originated with English archers. I don't even know if
36:20
Speaker 1: he knows the history. I'm gonna ask him. Oh, you
36:22
Speaker 1: gotta tell him, and don't tell him. I call them
36:24
Speaker 1: Mr fancy paint. I don't, you don't care. So apparently
36:29
Speaker 1: it did um, that's right, and sells wine. Um. They
36:34
Speaker 1: apparently it was English archers who would like draw targets
36:37
Speaker 1: on um oak casks behind the bar and would shorten
36:42
Speaker 1: their arrows and use those to kind of keep their
36:45
Speaker 1: their marksmanship steely edged. That's right, And you know what,
36:50
Speaker 1: I feel bad. The other day I thought about mentioning
36:53
Speaker 1: uh he Melissa's wine shop without saying the name, because
36:57
Speaker 1: we say so many names of places, and this is
36:59
Speaker 1: one of my old friends. So here in Atlanta, in
37:02
Speaker 1: the neighborhood of Kirkwood, you can go to Dombe Juice
37:05
Speaker 1: wine shop, Melissa's Portuguese and Dombes Juice is Portuguese. They
37:09
Speaker 1: have a great selection of Portuguese wine, but all kinds
37:11
Speaker 1: of great wine. And knew dude that they just hired.
37:14
Speaker 1: I just met the other day. I was talking to
37:16
Speaker 1: him for a minute and he went by the way
37:18
Speaker 1: big stuff. You should know fan, Oh yeah, yeah. So
37:21
Speaker 1: we chatted up for a little while, but Uh, you,
37:23
Speaker 1: you were more likely to see me there than anywhere
37:25
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. If you ever want to stop by, there's
37:27
Speaker 1: a chance in there. And it's conveniently located in the
37:31
Speaker 1: old back street building. Is communely located next to the
37:35
Speaker 1: police station. Oh is that convenient? Yeah? So for the police. Yeah,
37:40
Speaker 1: but here's the deal. You're next to police station. They're
37:43
Speaker 1: either just getting off work and they don't want to
37:45
Speaker 1: be bothered, or they're just getting on duty and they
37:47
Speaker 1: don't want to be bothered. I guess you're right. So
37:50
Speaker 1: it's kind of a perfect place to drink. I guess.
37:52
Speaker 1: So you just sit outside and drink and mock them
37:54
Speaker 1: as they come, you know, to and fro. Yeah, and
37:57
Speaker 1: I can walk home or ride my bike. Oh well,
37:59
Speaker 1: they you go. So it's convenient for you, is what
38:01
Speaker 1: you're saying. That's right. So another game, Chuck is skittles. Yeah,
38:06
Speaker 1: I didn't quite get this. It's very easy. It's a
38:08
Speaker 1: bowling game, but instead of ten pins, you have nine pins,
38:11
Speaker 1: and instead of a ball, you have a disc that
38:14
Speaker 1: is about the shape and size of a cheddar cheese wheel. Okay,
38:18
Speaker 1: you just roll it at the pins, all right. In
38:20
Speaker 1: the South, they call that tire bowling. That's great. I
38:25
Speaker 1: could totally see people doing that too in the South. Uh.
38:29
Speaker 1: And then there's one other one. I mean, darts really
38:31
Speaker 1: rules all I think of it there for pub games,
38:34
Speaker 1: but it's something called bat and trap. Dave dug up
38:37
Speaker 1: as an outdoor pub game that seems to be a
38:40
Speaker 1: sort of early version of cricket. It's pretty neat. I
38:43
Speaker 1: watched the video of it, and these people seem to
38:45
Speaker 1: be taking it quite seriously at the pub. But there's
38:48
Speaker 1: like a little a little gadget that holds a ball
38:52
Speaker 1: and you tap one end of the gadget which knocks
38:54
Speaker 1: the ball into the air, and then you hit the
38:56
Speaker 1: ball and it looks very much like you're using a
38:58
Speaker 1: cricket bat. I'm not sure it's called bad or not.
39:01
Speaker 1: And then the other people field the ball and rather
39:04
Speaker 1: than being out or not, it's now their turn to
39:07
Speaker 1: knock down a target that's located ways away from them
39:11
Speaker 1: where you just batted with the cricket bat. Mm hmmm.
39:15
Speaker 1: You know bocci is big here in the States at
39:17
Speaker 1: at bars now it has a tad bit of an
39:19
Speaker 1: element of Bocci to it, but knocking things down with Bocci.
39:23
Speaker 1: So I guess Bocci and Domino's plus crickets, Batton Trap
39:28
Speaker 1: plus beer. That's right. Oh yeah, you gotta You're not
39:30
Speaker 1: gonna play Batton Trap unless you've been drinking. That sounds
39:33
Speaker 1: like fun. I think you'd be like, what what is this? Uh?
39:37
Speaker 1: So should we wrap it up with what's happening with
39:39
Speaker 1: bubs these days? Yes? So the decline started a while ago.
39:44
Speaker 1: Dave mentioned the late nineteenth century, and this is when
39:48
Speaker 1: sort of the first move of what people see as
39:50
Speaker 1: the the beginning of the end for the all encompassing
39:54
Speaker 1: neighborhood pub is when brewers struck up deals with pubs
40:00
Speaker 1: to only sell their beer. Uh. And they became known
40:03
Speaker 1: as tide houses because they were tied to the one brand. Uh.
40:07
Speaker 1: And in the nineties, it's hard to believe this is
40:10
Speaker 1: happening that long ago, but of the pubs in the
40:13
Speaker 1: big cities were tied houses. Yeah. And it just kept
40:17
Speaker 1: going and going, um and escalating through the twentieth century
40:21
Speaker 1: to and Parliament said this sounds really weird, like we
40:25
Speaker 1: need to get a we need to get a handle
40:28
Speaker 1: on exactly how widespread this tide houses thing is. Because
40:31
Speaker 1: a bunch of the brewers started kind of consolidating into
40:34
Speaker 1: mega breweries and they found that s all of England's
40:39
Speaker 1: pubs were under the thumbs of six brewers, and by
40:44
Speaker 1: far Bass controlled the most. They had seventy pubs that
40:48
Speaker 1: were tied to them. And here's the thing, like, if
40:50
Speaker 1: if you have a pub that's tied to you, all
40:53
Speaker 1: you all they can do is sell your merchandise. All
40:55
Speaker 1: they can do is use glasses with your logo on it.
40:57
Speaker 1: All they can do is sell your beer, and you
41:00
Speaker 1: basically set the price whatever you want. It's almost like
41:02
Speaker 1: having a franchise basically, um and so Bass had seventy
41:07
Speaker 1: d Whitbread had, Encourage had fifty one, and then there
41:12
Speaker 1: were just three other brewers that owned the rest of them. Um.
41:16
Speaker 1: And that has a really homogenizing effect on everything. It's
41:20
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, wherever, if you drive to
41:22
Speaker 1: any town in the United States, UM, you're gonna find
41:26
Speaker 1: like an old Navy and the TJ Max and the
41:29
Speaker 1: same everything. Well, that's one thing. If you're talking about
41:32
Speaker 1: like reasonably priced genes and you know, off brand bars
41:37
Speaker 1: of soap, it's a totally different thing when you start
41:40
Speaker 1: messing with the institution that is essentially the soul of
41:44
Speaker 1: the nation, and that's what was going on through the
41:46
Speaker 1: twentieth century. Yeah, and I think it's gotten even more
41:49
Speaker 1: out of hand now because a lot of these pubs
41:53
Speaker 1: and you know, we've seen this sort of the same
41:54
Speaker 1: thing with uh craft brewing here in the United States
41:59
Speaker 1: getting out by big brewers, but hasn't really happened to
42:03
Speaker 1: my knowledge in the United States is the actual bars
42:06
Speaker 1: haven't been bought out on mass. But that's what's happened
42:10
Speaker 1: in England. And they're called pub cos. These big corporations
42:14
Speaker 1: UM have bought up like tons and tons of these
42:16
Speaker 1: pubs as sort of a real estate plague, all of
42:19
Speaker 1: McDonald's and a lot of people the criticisms are like
42:23
Speaker 1: this is a real estate play, Like you're not even
42:25
Speaker 1: you're not even in this to make a good experience
42:28
Speaker 1: at the pub. It's just about sort of the building
42:30
Speaker 1: in the land. And they also are really strict over margins,
42:35
Speaker 1: like if the stock prices UM fluctuate, they might, you know,
42:39
Speaker 1: UM find ways to cut costs back at the pub,
42:43
Speaker 1: and yeah, they don't. They don't care at all about
42:45
Speaker 1: customer experiences or consumer experiences. And apparently UM the Smoking
42:49
Speaker 1: Band of two thousand seven and then also the lockdowns
42:53
Speaker 1: from coronavirus really put a hit on a lot of pubs.
42:57
Speaker 1: A lot of pubs were lost. I think five thousand
42:59
Speaker 1: pubs were lost in the last like five years or
43:01
Speaker 1: something like that in England alone. Um but I strongly
43:06
Speaker 1: suspect they're not going to ultimately go anywhere. And evidence
43:11
Speaker 1: of that is um a group called the Campaign for
43:14
Speaker 1: Real Ale, which I think kind of suggests that there's
43:17
Speaker 1: always going to be this um man, I guess I
43:20
Speaker 1: might as well just say it, this thirst for genuine
43:22
Speaker 1: pubs in in England in places like Ireland as well. Yeah,
43:28
Speaker 1: so they're trying to kind of go back to that
43:31
Speaker 1: throwback to where it was true ale or real ale
43:35
Speaker 1: before it was hopped up and carbonated like beer is
43:40
Speaker 1: uh and that sort of you know, cast condition ale
43:43
Speaker 1: in the basement type of thing run by a sellerman
43:46
Speaker 1: or I guess you would say a seller person these
43:48
Speaker 1: days hopefully, uh. And there's a more push, there's a
43:51
Speaker 1: push to get those going. There are lists that the
43:54
Speaker 1: Campaign for Real Ale PUSS puts out a Good Beer
43:57
Speaker 1: Guide that lists forty five hundred camera approved pubs. Um
44:04
Speaker 1: but yeah, coronavirus. I saw. You know, Dave listed some
44:06
Speaker 1: of the oldest ones in England. Uh it's still in operation,
44:09
Speaker 1: and he listed ye Old Fighting Cocks founded in seventeene.
44:14
Speaker 1: That was for a while in the Guinness Book of
44:16
Speaker 1: World's record for oldest pub before they said, you know what,
44:19
Speaker 1: we can't really verify this stuff anymore, so we're not
44:21
Speaker 1: even gonna uh list these places. But that one closed
44:26
Speaker 1: in February. Chuck seven yeah, yeah, yeah, seven nine three.
44:36
Speaker 1: It closed in February and the owner they still used Republican.
44:41
Speaker 1: He said, I'm just a publican, I'm not a politician,
44:44
Speaker 1: and so he was kind of just speaking to the
44:46
Speaker 1: lockdowns and you know, someone else will probably open it up.
44:50
Speaker 1: Peter has gotten involved and said, uh, you should open
44:53
Speaker 1: it up and change the name from the Old Fighting
44:55
Speaker 1: Cocks and only sort of vegan food. And of course
44:58
Speaker 1: people over there just love that idea. So we talked
45:01
Speaker 1: also about Shawn's Bar. It's supposed to be the oldest
45:05
Speaker 1: pub ever and it is pretty close to being verified
45:09
Speaker 1: because archaeologists in the seventies found stuff in the walls
45:13
Speaker 1: and actually the walls being made of daub and wattle,
45:15
Speaker 1: which I think we talked about in the Bars episode. Um,
45:18
Speaker 1: and it's supposedly dates back to the um invasion of
45:23
Speaker 1: the Vikings around nine so and it's still going strong
45:27
Speaker 1: as far as I know. Yeah, that's old man. There's
45:31
Speaker 1: also the Old Ferry Boat In, which claims to have
45:34
Speaker 1: been operating since five sixty in Cambridgeshire. It's a great name.
45:41
Speaker 1: Um and I don't know if that's documented or not,
45:44
Speaker 1: but I was looking at that place and it maybe
45:47
Speaker 1: the most charming beer garden out back I've ever seen
45:50
Speaker 1: in my entire life. Which one the Old ferry Boat in?
45:55
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I looked that one up five sixty. You know,
45:58
Speaker 1: Cambridgeshire is probably pronounced curvester. I know. As it was
46:05
Speaker 1: coming out, I was saying, I'm going to get an
46:07
Speaker 1: email for this good stuff. Uh. So that's it for pubs, everybody.
46:12
Speaker 1: If you have a pub near you, especially a local
46:15
Speaker 1: which is an independent pub, go support it. Uh. And
46:21
Speaker 1: since I said go support it, that means, of course
46:23
Speaker 1: it's time for listening mail. Yeah. And you know what
46:26
Speaker 1: last facto I don't want to throw in. Uh, we
46:28
Speaker 1: don't need to get into it. But I just had
46:30
Speaker 1: no idea that the term gastro pub came from London.
46:34
Speaker 1: It seems like a very American sort of name, but
46:37
Speaker 1: it was coined in in London in the early nine es,
46:40
Speaker 1: is when some of the pubs started saying, hey, let's
46:43
Speaker 1: let's stop serving UH bangers and nash and let's start
46:46
Speaker 1: serving some uh. They call it stuff that you would
46:50
Speaker 1: eat on vacation, basically on holiday good stuff. Uh yeah.
46:56
Speaker 1: And since Chuck said gastro pubs, now, everybody's time for
47:00
Speaker 1: a listener mail, I'm gonna call this suggestion for something
47:05
Speaker 1: that we're actually gonna do this from Ron g Hey, guys,
47:10
Speaker 1: just want to offer up a suggestion for land acknowledgements.
47:13
Speaker 1: The way I found out about them was through a
47:15
Speaker 1: seminar attended last year. The host of the seminar was
47:18
Speaker 1: a minister of a Buddhist temple up in Sacramento, and
47:21
Speaker 1: before he began the seminar, he read a statement acknowledging
47:24
Speaker 1: that the land that the temple was on was previously
47:28
Speaker 1: occupied by uh and I think he named one two
47:32
Speaker 1: four different indigenous peoples and said, when I looked into
47:36
Speaker 1: creating a land acknowledgement for our own temple here in
47:38
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, it seemed like a lot of organizations, mostly
47:41
Speaker 1: educational institutions, have already done so. But there's some controversy
47:45
Speaker 1: behind it. But there seems to be a lot of
47:47
Speaker 1: good stuff out there on the topic, and I think
47:49
Speaker 1: listeners might enjoy it. You may even want to create
47:52
Speaker 1: a land acknowledgement for your studio so your listeners can
47:57
Speaker 1: hear what it sounds like. And that is from Ron G.
48:00
Speaker 1: It's a great idea, ron G and ron We're we're
48:03
Speaker 1: gonna do this when this is in the works already. Yeah,
48:05
Speaker 1: that's what I was saying. It's a great idea. I
48:08
Speaker 1: remember when we were on our Australia New Zealand tour.
48:12
Speaker 1: I think at pretty much every venue they did a
48:14
Speaker 1: land acknowledgement at the beginning. Did It's pretty cool? So
48:18
Speaker 1: it's a little bit of catching up we have to
48:20
Speaker 1: do here in the United States. Yeah, it's all part
48:22
Speaker 1: of the least we can do, right. Uh. Well, let's
48:28
Speaker 1: see if you want to get in touch of this,
48:30
Speaker 1: like Ron G did with a great suggestion. We love
48:33
Speaker 1: those kinds of things, send them to us. You can
48:35
Speaker 1: wrap it up in an email and send it off
48:37
Speaker 1: to stuff Podcasts at iHeart Radio dot com Stuff you
48:43
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