Ales, tales, and bar brawls: a brief (and tipsy) history of the English Pub

Now featuring Ron 'the Thong', flat beer, and the sticky floors of salvation.

Walk into a real English pub—not one of those sterilised gastro-pub nightmares with £14 cocktails and sustainably-sourced olives, but a proper boozer, where the ceiling’s too low, the floor’s too sticky, and the landlord has a PhD in pouring pints and saying nothing. What you’re stepping into isn’t just a building—it’s a time machine lubricated by ale and stubbornness.

Pubs have been around longer than most democracies. Born from the spit and sawdust of roadside alehouses, they were places where travellers, farmers, merchants, and local lunatics gathered to shelter from the cold and from their own thoughts. There was no IPA flight. There was warm beer that tasted like something you'd find fermenting behind a barn, served in cracked tankards by someone who knew three things: how to pour, how to swear, and how to listen without actually caring.

The beer wasn’t good. Let’s be clear about that. It wasn’t artisan or nuanced or “crushable.” It was functional. It did a job. You drank it not because you liked it, but because you needed it. It was survival juice. And somehow, that made it better.

Every proper pub has its local legends. The ones who seem fused to the barstool, part man, part furniture, full myth. Ours was a man called Ron 'the Thong', and frankly, that name undersells him.

Ron was the kind of bloke who could silence a room with a story and start a riot with a shrug. He used to run the pub back in the day—his day, which, according to Ron, was when men were real, beer was bitter, and pubs didn’t serve “fancy bloody hummus.” He’d tell it all with the misty-eyed nostalgia of a man who saw the decline of Western civilisation in every sweet cider and gluten-free menu option.

Now, Ron’s pub management techniques were… let’s say, rustic. He was proud—insistently proud—of a tradition that made my liver shudder and my soul weep. He’d boast, with a grin like the Cheshire Cat caught mid-crime, that back in his time, they’d save the spillages from the drip trays—yes, the grey, greasy runoff from under the pumps—and pour it all back into the mild barrel. "Bit of tonic water and no one knew the difference," he’d say, as if he were some twisted Heston Blumenthal of backroom backwash. I gagged. He beamed. He considered it not just thrifty, but a kind of artisanal recycling. An eco-warrior ahead of his time, if you ignored the hygiene violations and the possible hepatitis.

But the stories didn’t stop at the bar. No, Ron was infamous beyond the walls. The legend of “Ron ‘the Thong’” was born the day he opened his front door to the postman wearing nothing but a faded leopard-print thong and bright yellow Marigold gloves. No robe. No shame. Just Ron. One bollock hanging dangerously close to a breach of public decency and a cigarette clinging to his lip like it was trying to escape.

He said the gloves were for hygiene. The thong? “For comfort.” That’s it. That’s all you got. He once told the new barmaid that “air circulation’s important when you’re a man of a certain age.” I still don’t know what that means, but I haven’t sat on his barstool since.

And yet—and yet—Ron was the soul of the place. Because a pub isn’t a pub without characters. Without the old guard. Without the bullshitters, the philosophers, the sad-eyed drinkers staring into a pint like it’s a crystal ball. Pubs have always made room for the broken, the brilliant, and the bizarre. It’s what they’re for.

Historically, these weren’t just places to get smashed. They were churches for the godless. Meeting halls for the working class. Revolution headquarters with sticky carpets. Tudor protestors, Victorian thieves, WW2 evacuees—they all found sanctuary under those creaking beams. And always, always, there was someone in the corner telling you the world was going to hell but the beer was still cold.

These days, the pub is holding on. Some have gone full gentrified horror show, where they serve quinoa salad and play acoustic Coldplay. But the real ones are still there. Where the darts board’s wonky, the ceiling leaks when it rains, and the landlord has opinions about everything from Churchill to the correct way to stack pint glasses (base to base, obviously).

You don’t go to a pub just to drink. You go to witness something—some living, breathing tapestry of human nonsense. The noise. The stories. The ghosts. The spillages. Ron ‘the Thong’. All of it.

Because sometimes, all you need is a pint, a bit of dodgy chat, and the comforting knowledge that someone, somewhere, once sold you back your own beer with a splash of tonic—and called it tradition.

Fish & chips with Harvey’s Best: A love letter to frying and regret

Because you didn’t buy a pub to serve frozen nonsense.

Let’s be honest: English pubs were never about finesse. They were—and are—cathedrals of chaos, grease, and honest conversation shouted over the din of a fruit machine losing its will to live. Somewhere between the first pint and last call, a fight breaks out over a game of darts, someone tells a lie so good it becomes local folklore, and behind the bar, a landlady throws a dish towel like a ninja star. It’s beautiful. Messy. Real.

And through it all, one thing has stood firm. Not the stools (they wobble), not the plumbing (temperamental at best), but the fish and bloody chips. The national dish of resilience. Battered like your local ex-roadie-turned-regular. Fried like your nerves after four double shifts and a spilled cask of mild. Salty, crunchy, steaming-hot defiance wrapped in paper and eaten with a wooden fork that’s completely useless and entirely traditional.

This isn’t fine dining. This is pub dining. The kind you eat standing up, leaning on a sticky table, burning your fingers while shouting over someone’s theory on why the village scarecrow might be cursed. It’s history on a plate, served with a side of mushy peas and existential dread.

So here it is: a proper fish and chips recipe. No frills. No balsamic drizzle. Just golden batter, crisp chips, and the kind of meal you eat after you’ve just told a story you probably shouldn't have and bought a round you definitely couldn’t afford.

The fish (and its final destiny)

• 4 thick fillets of cod or haddock (about 6 oz / 170 g each) – fresh, firm, no fishy funk

• Salt & pepper, to season like you’ve got standards

• ½ cup (65 g) plain flour, for dusting

The batter that drinks better than you do

• 1½ cups (180 g) self rising flour (or plain flour with 1 tsp baking powder)

• ½ tsp salt

• 1 ½ cup of Harvey’s Best Sussex Ale – buy a couple of bottles one for the batter, one for the cook

• ½ cup soda water, gives the batter lift, air, and that glass-shattering crunch that turns fish into legend

• Optional: A pinch of cayenne or white pepper if you like a bit of backbone in your crust and 1 tsp turmeric for some awesome colour

Directions:

In a big bowl, mix the flour, baking powder (if using plain flour), and salt. Slowly pour in the Harvey’s Best, whisking like a lunatic until you get a smooth, super-thick, beer-scented batter. Loosen the batter with the soda water. It should coat a spoon but still drip like a late-night confession. Let it rest 15–30 minutes. Drink the rest of the ale while you wait, obviously.

Frying the fish (here’s where you earn your pint)

1. Heat the oil to 375°F / 190°C.

2. Pat the fish dry. Dust with a little flour—this helps the batter stick like a good lie.

3. Dip into the batter. Coat it. Love it. Drop it into the hot oil like it insulted your mother.

4. Fry 6–8 minutes, turning once, until golden, puffed, and crisp as a fresh one-liner.

5. Drain on a wire rack. Never on paper towels—soggy is for cowards.

To Serve

Pile the chips high, crown them with the fish, hit it with malt vinegar, sea salt, and maybe a lemon wedge if you’re feeling fancy. Pair it with a cold Harvey’s Best in a proper glass, not some jam jar nonsense.

Add a side of mushy peas if you hate yourself just enough—or tartare sauce if you want to actually enjoy life.

The chips (Thick. Hot. British.)

• 4–5 large Maris Piper or Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into chunky fries

• Oil for frying (something with a high smoke point—sunflower, peanut, beef dripping if you’re a traditionalist or just unafraid of death)

Directions:

Blanch the chips in oil at 300°F / 150°C for 4–5 minutes. Don’t brown them yet—you’re just giving them a soft interior. Drain and cool. Then crank the heat to 375°F / 190°C and fry again until golden, crisp, and loud when dropped on a plate. Salt immediately.

Tartare sauce for people who know better

This isn’t the watery, sad-sack goo that comes in a plastic ramekin next to some frozen fish fingers. This is tartare sauce that actually earns its place on the plate—briny, punchy, and unapologetically loud. If your fish can’t handle it, maybe it didn’t deserve to be caught.

What you’ll need:

• 2 cups (500ml) real mayonnaise. Not light. Not vegan. Not some lab-born crime against eggs.

• ½ cup (75g) gherkins, finely chopped. Go sharp, go crunchy, full sours or go home.

• ¼ cup capers (40g), finely chopped. Salt bombs. You want 'em.

• ¼ cup sweet white onion (40g), finely chopped. Sweet like your nan. Bites like your ex.

• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar (30ml). The acid that wakes it all up.

Directions:

Stir it. Taste it. Chill it—literally, in the fridge, for at least an hour. Let the flavours brawl it out behind closed doors before they land on your plate. Serve with fish, chips, or anything else that needs a swift, creamy kick in the teeth.

One pint too many: the night I accidentally bought a pub

How I drunkenly signed away my future to a fireplace and a woman with a gin laugh

Let me start by saying this: no one ever intentionallybuys a pub at one in the morning, three sheets to the wind and wearing full military dress uniform with a sword on their hip and questionable stains on their cummerbund. But life doesn’t always wait for sobriety, and neither, apparently, does British real estate.

At the time, I was a proud Canadian officer stationed in the UK—shiny boots, crisp salute, all that polished maple-leaf protocol. I’d settled into the rhythm of overseas military life, dodging rain and sarcasm, pretending to understand cricket, and developing a dangerously affectionate relationship with British bacon.

But nothing—and I mean nothing—prepares you for your first UK mess dinner. These aren’t dinners. They’re ritualistic tests of liver durability disguised as formal military events. Think Downton Abbey meets Fight Club with more port and less accountability.

It started the way these things always do. Toasts. More toasts. Then toasts to the toasts. You’re clinking glasses so often your wrist cramps. The Brits—experts in ritualistic inebriation—were delighted that a Canadian could hold her drink without crying or vomiting into a regimental hat. I took it as a point of national pride. Mistake number one.

Several bottles later, decorum limped out the door and was replaced by bad decisions in shiny shoes. A rogue band of us—fuelled by port, bravado, and poor impulse control—headed into the nearby village to keep the night alive. That’s when we stumbled into her: the pub.

It was everything you imagine when you hear the phrase “quintessential British village pub.” Low beams, fire roaring like it had personal grievances, centuries-old wood, and that wonderful stench of old ale, burnt gravy, and local gossip. It smelled like stories and bad decisions. It smelled like home.

At the bar stood the landlady—a glorious, gin-laced old bird who looked like she’d seen things, said worse, and still had time for a smoke break. We got to talking. Life. Booze. The cultural superiority of butter tarts vs. Bakewell puddings. Somewhere between my third scotch and her fifth gin and tonic, she said something like:

“I’m thinking of retiring soon. Fancy running the place?”

To which I, a woman marinated in misguided patriotism and 40% alcohol, replied:

“Honestly, yeah. Imagine owning a place like this…”

And that, dear reader, should’ve been the end of it. A throwaway comment. A boozy fantasy, born of soft lighting and warm company. But this is England. And in England, a pub deal made after midnight is still legally terrifying the next morning.

I woke up in my barracks like I’d been hit by a bus full of regrets and driven over by a hungover regimental goat. Dry mouth. One high-heeled shoe on. The taste of betrayal on my tongue (probably the port). I reached into my coat pocket hoping for paracetamol or dignity—and instead pulled out a folded piece of paper.

Not a receipt. Not a napkin scribble.

A legally binding document.

I’d put down a deposit. On. The. Pub.

Cue: instant, cold-sweat panic. I texted everyone I could remember from the night before. “Please tell me this is a joke.”

Nope.

“Chick, you're a fucking pub landlady now!”

One of them sent a picture of me holding the paper like it was the Magna Carta, grinning like I'd just adopted a puppy instead of six years of unpaid plumbing bills and cellar rot.

I called the landlady in a spiral of shame. She was delighted.

“Thought you might back out. But nope, you signed it with a flourish. Proper Canadian flourish.”

I had a choice: pull out and flee back to Canada, tail between my legs and bank account smoking—or lean in.

So I leaned.

I leaned so hard I packed my life into a shipping crate and moved to England permanently. I becamethat crazy gal. The officer who accidentally bought a pub. A living cautionary tale in shiny boots and a bar towel.

Word spread. Back home, I became legend. In the village, I became landlady. People dropped in just to meet the idiot who bought a pub by accident. I served pints. I patched leaks. I learned how to pour Guinness properly and how not to argue with old men who thought they were Churchill reincarnated.

And every time someone came in and asked, “You buying this one too?”

I’d smile, nod, and say:

“Not unless you pour me six pints, feed me a mess dinner, and hand me a pen.”

Moral of the story?

Don’t drink with British officers if you don’t want to wake up with a pub.

But if you do?

Make sure it has a fire, a landlady with stories, and beer lines older than your sense of responsibility.

And then… pour yourself a pint, you mad bastard.

You’re home.

Ale be damned, it’s a nut roast

It started, as most bad ideas do, with one pint too many and a misplaced sense of invincibility. One minute I was swapping tall tales with locals over a lukewarm ale, the next I owned a pub with peeling wallpaper, a haunted dishwasher, and no functioning kitchen. Meat ruled the menu like a tyrant with gravy-stained fists—until the day a tired, rain-soaked traveller wandered in asking for “something vegetarian… anything, really.” I laughed, then I made this nut roast. It’s not your bland, brick-shaped apology from the 90s. It’s earthy, rich, crackling with toasted nuts, smoky mushrooms, and the kind of umami punch that shuts up even the most carnivorous cynic. Because if I was going to serve vegetables, they damn well had to have swagger.

Ingredients

(Serves a crowd—because if you're making this much, you better not be alone)

• 6 tbsp (90 ml) olive oil 

• 6 tbsp (90 g) butter 

• 6 large onions, finely chopped

• 12 sticks celery, finely chopped

• 12 garlic cloves, smashed and minced

• 5 cups (1200 g) mushrooms, finely chopped

• 6 red bell peppers, deseeded and diced

• 6 large carrots, grated

• 6 tsp dried oregano

• 6 tsp smoked paprika

• 1 ¼ cup (600 g) red lentils

• 12 tbsp (180 ml) tomato purée

• 7½ cups (1.8 L) vegetable stock

• 2 ¼ cup (600 g) fresh breadcrumbs

• 3.5 cups (900 g) mixed nuts, roughly chopped

• 18 large eggs, lightly beaten

• 2 ¼ cups (600 g) mature cheddar, grated

• 2 bunches flat-leaf parsley, chopped like you mean it

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C / 350°F. Line a big-ass roasting tin with parchment paper—sides and bottom. This beast needs structure.

2. Get a serious pot—heavy-bottomed, like your most stubborn mate at the bar—and heat up the olive oil and butter. Toss in the onions and celery. Sauté for about 5 minutes until they start to soften. No colour, just sweat.

3. Add the garlic and mushrooms. Stir like you give a damn. Let it go another 10 minutes. You want the mushrooms to release their moisture and start getting a bit meaty.

4. In go the peppers and carrots. Let them soften—just a few minutes. Then hit it with the oregano and paprika. Smell that? That’s dinner starting to make sense.

5. Dump in the lentils and tomato purée. Stir it all around, then pour in the vegetable stock. Simmer on low heat until the lentils soak up the liquid and the whole mess is thick and almost dry. No soup here. You're aiming for spoon-standing consistency. Cool it down a bit.

6. Time to bring it home. Stir in the breadcrumbs, chopped nuts, beaten eggs, cheese, and parsley. Salt and pepper, like you mean it. Mix until it holds together like a slightly chaotic meatloaf from a better universe.

7. Spoon into your prepared tin and press it down like you’re tucking it in for a long nap. Cover with foil.

8. Bake for 30 minutes, then uncover and give it another 20. You want it golden on top and firm when gently pressed—like a handshake from someone you can trust.

To Serve

Slice thick. Serve hot. Pair with roasted potatoes, proper gravy, or even just a pint and a fork. You don’t need a turkey to celebrate something.

Corporate carnage: When yuppies turn the pub into a coke-fuelled, tampon-smeared warzone

There are nights in pub life that are pleasant—tranquil evenings of regulars sipping their pints quietly, debating football, sharing quiet reflections on life’s gentle absurdities, and quietly nodding along to familiar tunes on the jukebox. The kind of nights where nothing more dramatic happens than an occasional pint spilled on a freshly cleaned carpet. And then there are the nights you rent your pub out to corporate types, that uniquely insufferable breed known as “yuppies”—young, upwardly-mobile psychopaths who interpret the phrase “private function” as a blank cheque to revert to drug-fuelled savagery that makes Nero’s Rome look like a Victorian tea party.

It starts innocently enough. They arrive promptly at six-thirty, all tailored suits and pencil skirts, faces scrubbed to project an air of respectability that evaporates faster than their inhibitions. They mingle politely at first, nibbling finger foods, exchanging polite banter about ROI, synergy, and projected quarterly growth. Conversations so artificially wholesome you suspect they rehearsed them in front of their bathroom mirrors that morning. For a while, it almost seems like things might remain civilized.

But after the second or third round of artisanal craft gin cocktails and expensive wine, the veneer begins to crack. Smiles grow wider and louder, laughter more reckless and wild. There’s a dangerous glint in their eyes—a subtle shift that transforms polite professionals into cackling hyenas on a Serengeti hunt. Gone are the sensible shoes and restrained chuckles; the stilettos get kicked off, ties loosened, shirts untucked. They start screaming conversations about office affairs, scandals, and the kind of secrets HR would kill to keep buried. It’s a corporate Lord of the Flies, with smartphones instead of spears.

Then comes the inevitable exodus to the bathrooms, the epicentre of all bad decisions. This sacred space, typically reserved for quiet reflection and necessary bodily functions, becomes a disaster zone. Cocaine, their favoured white powder, is not just casually snorted—it’s inhaled like life-giving oxygen. Lines of powder appear on every conceivable surface: sinks, toilet lids, even balanced precariously along the edges of grimy urinals. You find bits of plastic and rolled-up banknotes everywhere, relics from their descent into hedonistic madness.

And cocaine is just the tip of the drug-addled iceberg. Pills of dubious origin circulate freely, marijuana smoke seeps from the cracks beneath locked stalls, and someone inevitably figures out the bathroom lights generate enough heat to cook whatever dubious concoction they're attempting to ingest or inject. Each morning-after inspection reveals a symphony of shattered bulbs, blocked plumbing, and the kind of chemical residue that makes crime-scene cleanup look appealing. Eventually, I replaced every single bulb fixture with industrial-strength LEDs housed in bulletproof casings, giving our bathrooms all the charm of a maximum-security prison but drastically reducing repair bills.

If you thought the drugs were bad, you haven’t met the women. I’ve witnessed plenty in my time, but nothing prepared me for the horrors unleashed by corporate ladies letting loose. Take, for instance, the one who saw fit to turn her menstruation into performance art, smearing a used tampon across the bathroom walls in a twisted tribute to Jackson Pollock. My cleaner, a young lad previously optimistic about his career prospects, walked out of that bathroom and straight into existential despair. And let’s not forget the other classy lady who viewed our expensive, carefully selected curtains as her personal vomit bucket. Every. Single. Time. I eventually replaced them with something you’d typically find in a slaughterhouse—hose-down vinyl curtains in the cheerful shade of hospital beige.

Yet, amidst this carnage—smashed glasses, obliterated plumbing, chemically defiled upholstery—the profits from these corporate rampages were undeniably attractive. A single night’s takings from one of these events could cover the pub’s monthly overhead, plus a bonus to soothe our shattered nerves. Rejecting them outright wasn't economically viable. Instead, I implemented the “Fuck-You Damage Deposit”—a hefty £500 upfront, non-negotiable, non-refundable. Astonishingly, they forked it over without batting an eye. Snort, shag, shatter, and settle became their unspoken creed.

Ultimately, taming yuppie chaos is a fool’s errand. You can’t control the hurricane—you merely learn to harness it. Rather than fight the madness, you monetize it. So now, when someone says “corporate event,” I don’t cringe or reach immediately for the cleaning supplies. Instead, I smile knowingly, counting stacks of pristine, plastic-covered notes while quietly laughing all the way to the bank.

Tiny food, big problems: canapés for the coked-up corporate class

by someone who’s seen too much and cleaned up worse

Let me tell you something about canapés. They’re not food. Not really. They’re edible status updates—snobbish little mouthfuls engineered less for nourishment and more for showing off. You don’t eat them to survive. You eat them to signal that you once vacationed in Santorini and know the difference between a pinot grigio and a pinot gris (you don’t).

These things are delicate. Fragile. They crumble the moment you try to look cool holding one. And yet, they’re the fuel of every yuppie apocalypse I’ve ever hosted. Right before the cocaine comes out and someone projectile vomits into my curtains, they’re Instagramming a beetroot carpaccio with goat cheese mousse like it’s the second coming of Christ.

What follows is a menu curated from experience—each canapé a tiny, pretentious appetizer that’s watched an office drone turn into a bathroom-sabotaging wildebeest. These are the bites your guests will chew while whispering about Janet from Finance blowing the CFO in the disabled loo.

Pair with artisanal gin, bad decisions, and a damage deposit large enough to cover drywall repair.

Bon appétit, assholes.

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