"You can get just so much out of bars and they won't go down anymore. They come up. People in bars were like people in 5 and dime stores: they were killing time and everything else."
-- Charles Bukowski in "Would You Suggest Writing as a Career?"
Last year I heard a story on Graham Sander's Craftbrewer Radio about how Australian pub culture was in danger of extinction. Of course, immediately I was alarmed. Even though I've never been to Australia, my combination of liberal do-goodism and love of beer and pubs made me feel like I should do something to save Australian pub culture. Then I thought, wait a minute. What about pub culture in my own back yard? What's happening in the US? More specifically what's happening on Long Island?
I suppose that part of my initial enthusiasm for putting together a Long Island Beer Guide was that I wanted to save Long Island pub culture -- be the "pub messiah" (after all, I already have the long hair and the beard) --, but after visiting a few pubs, I started wondering what it was that I really wanted to save and so I find myself sitting on a bar stool in Callahan's pondering the meaning of beer and the social function of the pub.
Another tidbit of trivia I heard somewhere (I don't remember the source) is that people in the US are drinking most of their beer at home, rather than at the pub. What does this mean? It could mean that people are going to the pub to drink whiskey and tequila and saving the beer for when then are parked in front of the TV. Or it could mean that people just aren't drinking at the pub.
In my last installment I guessed that people my age (in the twenty-five to forty-five range) aren't going to the pub because they have kids to take care of.
I know I certainly can't get to the pub every night. I'm lucky to get to the pub once a week and even that has to be planned and logistics filed at the central family planning office at least twenty-four hours in advance. Even if I could go to the pub every night, would I want to?
This brings us to the central question of today's musings: why drink at a pub?
Like any good beer reporter, I decided to ask the woman in the street why she drinks at a pub (instead of, say, at home or at work). The woman in the street reported that she used to go to this really neat pub in her neighborhood. "It was easy," she said. "It was on the way home and you'd just get sucked in. You'd see all your friends there. The only problem was that after a few months a bunch of us realized that we were spending more and more time drinking and that there were all these people getting shit-faced every single night and I started to think it was just a little sad, so I stopped going." Thank you, woman in the street.
I wish I had watched the television show Cheers! because its such an important pub-cultural reference. When I ask people this question about pubs, specifically neighborhood pubs ("locals"), they often say, "Everyone's looking for Cheers! That mythical place where everyone knows your name."
That's partly why I like going to Callahan's now. After nearly three months of showing up one or two times a week, the owner and the bar staff all know me and a few of the regular patrons know me and most know me by sight if not by name.
One reason to drink at the pub is that drinking (beer especially) is a social activity. When you drink beer, you talk. And when you are sitting at a bar next to someone, you invariably end up saying a word or two and sometimes it turns into a conversation. If the bartender knows their business, they'll be talking and they'll do stuff to get conversations going.
Next time, I'll write some more about the social aspects of pub-going and about some of the games people play while drinking.
Comments
Stonch - April 5, 2007 11:16 AM
Great article, you've prompted me to post this on my blog - "Halt the decline of pub culture" - http://stonch.blogspot.com/2007/04/halt-decline-of-pub-culture.html
Smoove D - April 5, 2007 9:48 PM
Personally, I don't go to the pub very often because it's expensive. Why pay $5.00 plus tip (and whatever parking costs, amortized over the number of beers consumed) when a six pack from the package store can be had for $5.00 - $8.00? Pubs in Atlanta make no economic sense. Also, at the local by me, selection is severely limited, while at the liquor store, they have beer and craft brews from all over. If I buy a six pack and don't care for the beer, I unload it on friends at the next gathering. At the pub, I'm simply out $5.00. Finally, I just moved to a new 'hood and none of my friends live here. The owners of the local are friendly, but the denizens are not. I could see paying inflated pub prices if I could make friends there, but otherwise I'd rather buy a sixer and hang on the cheap with my friends.
Alan - April 5, 2007 10:06 PM
That is a very good comment, SD. Plus, maybe we forget how out homes have become our entertainment centres - something that previously were only rivaled by pubs. Right now, ahead of a four day weekend, I'm flopped on the sofa in the 1960s dream rec room, have the Ramones cranked, get to watch the ballgame Yankees struggle against Tampa Bay on a ridiculously large TV and have a glass of Goliath going. Like a bar gets me that.
Stonch - April 6, 2007 1:13 AM
SD - all of those are good points in your particular circumstances. I suppose what you're saying is that the pub culture on offer to you isn't the kind worth preserving for your purposes. However, most of the points you make are area specific. For example, apart from in really rural areas, here in the UK most people have a pub within walking distance or easily reached by public transport, so the parking/driving bit isn't an issue for us. The tipping doesn't matter either - we don't tip bar staff over here (once in a while you offer to buy the barman a drink, but it isn't obligatory in any sense). However, I don't agree with the point about it being more expensive to buy beer in the pub - of course it is! The bar has overheads to pay that an off license doesn't! You are paying for the surroundings and the atmosphere.
Wouldn't it be a sad, sad world if we all just stayed at home, or just visited the homes of our friends? Sounds a bit like a dystopian nightmare vision of the future to me - the true breakdown of society.
Donavan Hall - April 6, 2007 9:35 AM
I'm glad SD spoke up. These are issues I'll be tackling at this pub culture series develops. In fact, yesterday, after reading Stonch's post about saving the pub culture in England, my first thought was that in the US its not a matter of saving, but of building up, of developing pub culture.
Last night, I went to Callahan's with a buddy of mine. We are mapping out plans to do our bit to help develop pub culture on Long Island. While we were chatting, the owner, Pete, comes out of the back and says, "Hey, how's it going guys?" He sits down with us and we talk for about an hour about great beer and scotch and how Pete thinks he can get some better beers in the place for us. "Would you like to see Chimay on tap?" Pete asks.
Later a guy comes in and sits down next to us and says, "Hey, I'm Nick." Nick's drinking megaswill, but we talk about where to find the best fishing holes in Long Island Sound. And that Yankees game was on the tube in the corner. Does it get better? Yes, it does, but we in the US have some work ahead of us.
The next time Nick comes in and sits down next to me, I'm going to split a big bottle of Affligem Dubbel with him.
Smoove D - April 8, 2007 8:25 PM
To clarify a bit, I wouldn't mind paying the bar prices for pints if the surroundings provided some value for the money - but pub culture in Atlanta is rather lacking in terms of social interaction and not really worth the money when it's cheaper and significantly more fun to have people over, or go to parties put on by friends.
Nate - April 10, 2007 5:40 PM
Over the last 5 years, I've actually gone to where I just don't drink at home at all. I can go out to the pub and drink until I can't see straight, but I won't touch a drop at home, even if I spend two straight weeks in. I think a lot of it is the social aspect, especially since the place I've frequented over the last year has some very sharp folks. Part of it too, sadly, is the fear that "you're going to miss something". Plus our local cable system blows and I get ten times as much sports programming at the bar.
Agnes - January 5, 2008 3:39 AM
Well, I started going to one and I even wrote about pubs in my blog but then I realized that I really don't like drinking beer due to health reasons. It is also bad for Filipino women to be seen in a bar or a pub (it is a culture thing). In a double standard society like ours, only men are acceptable to be seen drinking publicly. Although I now live in Canada, I still feel awkward being seen drinking in a bar or pub.
Alan - January 5, 2008 12:02 PM
When we lived in Poland, a woman could drink vodka but not beer if she wanted to be thought of as proper.