Firkin Pubs: Classic Or Dud?

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Will anyone defend these homes of shit puns and and even shitter beer?

― Ricardo (RickyT), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes! They are very lax on "broken" jukeboxes which allow you free reign of them all night, er... there was an old red phone box in one instead of the generic crappy payphone at the end of the bar... um I can't remember the beer but am pretty sure I would have been drinking CAFFREYS anyway...

Er...

Wetherspoons are better.

― Sarah (starry), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I haven't been a Firkin's pub in DONKEYS. Their homebrew was cheap, I'll give it that.

― Sarah (starry), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I went in one once, in Camden, to look for someone. They weren't there.

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I have a soft spot for the Fox and Firkin in Lewisham High Street which was one of the first and is still there I think. This is only because it used to be run by a gay couple who crushed on most of my friends and allowed us to drink in there till stupid o'clock.

Funnily enough they disappeared fairly suddenly, although the fact that one of them had all his front teeth missing and only three fingers on one hand might have had something to do with that.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Downside is that you can walk into any Firkin pub in the whole of Britain and chances are there will be a hairy band in there playing Born To Be Wild or The Boys Are Back In Town.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, we have a lot of them here in Canada. You can find quite a few of them in suburban stripmalls. You know, for when you want that authentic british pub drinking experience.

― maypang (maypang), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:21 (twenty-one years ago)

From that last post alone, these places sound amazing!
x-post

― kirsten (kirsten), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Surely Firkin pubs were preferable to O'Neills?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Dud Dud Dud.

One of the ones here killed off A pub that used to have blues night, another killed off the Jericho Tavern.. before being called The Jericho, but is as still shit as when it was a Firkin.

and those puns really annoy me

― jellybean (jellybean), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:27 (twenty-one years ago)

The fitchew & firkin in rugby was ok. It was full of goths and, I'm told, the occasional member of spacemen 3. And they had chess and ludo and connect 4. Way better than O'Neills.

― Cathy (Cathy), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I've been in The Jericho, I think - isn't it a *gasp* Scream pub these days?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Also is The Eerie Pub Company the worst idea ever or what?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:30 (twenty-one years ago)

yup. at some point the firkin pubs and the it's a scream pubs were owned by the same evil brewery empire.. don't know if it's still the case now.

The it's a scream pubs are shite as well.

― jellybean (jellybean), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Here is my rating of chain pubs:

1. Wetherspoons
2. Scream pubs (really cheap food at lunchtimes and silly special offers - spent lots of time in them as YOUTH)
3. O'Neils!
4. CHAIN GOTH PUBS ie Ben Crouch and that other odd one in Nottingham gorblimey - wd probably be higher except seeing as they are GOTH they have no nice BOUZE and are v pricey
4. Firkins
5. T&J Bernards: they are worst due to FALSE PIE ERROR. Although the Rising Sun on TCR is alright.

― Sarah (starry), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:34 (twenty-one years ago)

The Eerie Pub Company is 'iLARIOUS!

― Sarah (starry), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:34 (twenty-one years ago)

B-b-but... SAM SMITHS?!

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:35 (twenty-one years ago)

6. Slug & Lettuce
7. All Bar One
8. Pitcher & Piano (seriously, explain the point of these places?)

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Sam Smiths = ZERO, it is above and beyond and below and on top and underneath of any of your so called positive numbers.

Also I don't think of them as a chain so much only cos I have never seen in any other part of the country. My bad!

― Sarah (starry), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:36 (twenty-one years ago)

It has to be said though, most pubs are shit. Or maybe I'm just getting harder to please.

― Matt (Matt), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:38 (twenty-one years ago)

My inexplicable rating of O'Neils is mostly down to a hazy night out in Preston which involved downing 3 pints of extra cold Guinness and then drinking lots of alcopops - I believe my mark to be erroneous, as I have visited that Fresh O'Neils Hell by Chinatown and possibly had the worst time in my life EVER.

― Sarah (starry), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Sam Smiths pubs are not a chain, they are merely tied houses.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:40 (twenty-one years ago)

That big Wardour Street O'Neills is the worst pub in London. Worse than Waxy O'Connells.

Oh no! I forgot YATES'S WINE LODGE, surely the worst offender of all chain pubs ever?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:44 (twenty-one years ago)

that was the original chain pub too wasn't it? scumbag hell, well, the one in Nottingham was anyway

― chris (chris), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Wetherspoons at number one! They stink and are full of solitary gulpers with carrier bags at their feet.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:47 (twenty-one years ago)

nooo what about goose pubs, and all the moon pubs?

― chris (chris), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Old git answer - I look back v. fondly on many afternoons and evenings of total ruin in the Phoenix in Denmark Hill. That's when Firkins were good and Dogbolter was good. That rocket propelled kick that 3 or 4 quick pints of Dog gives you was ace. Other Firkins I used to frequent - the one near Euston and the one in Elephant and Castle.

Last visit to a Firkin was the one in Richmond about a year ago - the beer was shit and the average age of punters was about 15.

The red phone box what Starry mentions - I think that was in the Phoenix.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Any punch taverns pubs (Allied Domecq as waas) are intrinsically shit, largely due to the brewery offers enticing the worst sort of alcopop crowd. This prejudice is in no way due to me being barred from the Buck I'th Vine. Piece of shit pub. Didn't want to drink there anyway.

― Matt (Matt), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh christ, so many of them! I am agog at how many I have forgetted!

They stink and are full of solitary gulpers with carrier bags at their feet

Like most "cosy" old man pubs, much favoured round these parts eh? There's nothing wrong with that!

― Sarah (starry), Thursday, 4 March 2004 16:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Hogshead and Hogoblin pubs - C/D?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 4 March 2004 17:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh god, scumbelinas. Never has a good time been had in any of those pubs, ever.

― Sarah (starry), Thursday, 4 March 2004 17:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I really hate Hobgoblins.

In last year's GBBF programme there was an advert for Hobgoblin featuring a shitty cartoon goblin leering out of the page, with the words 'What's the matter lager boy? Afraid you might taste something?' IME, the something you might taste is sickly sweet malt extract with a strong overtone of drains.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Thursday, 4 March 2004 17:22 (twenty-one years ago)

The original Hogshead pub model was actually perfectly OK. The Bath Ale House in Cambridge circa 1994 was a Hogshead and it was a nice little boozer with a huge range of bitter. This all changed in the late nineties when they turned into vile Slug and Lettuce alikes with better beer.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Thursday, 4 March 2004 17:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Do Firkins really still exist? I haven't seen one in years.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 4 March 2004 17:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I've never quite bought into an aesthetic differentiation of pubs...

― Bob Six (bobbysix), Thursday, 4 March 2004 21:44 (twenty-one years ago)

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