Real Ale Pubs Are Just As Themed as Irish Pubs. Discuss

Or Wetherspoons or Flares, the seventies themed nightspots, for that matter. This might seem a bit harsh but hear me out on this one.

Tragically, disgracefully, pubs are closing at an alarming rate. Walk or drive around any town and you'll see once great institutions boarded up. Almost as bad are the modernised pubs, cavernous voids knocked through to create a shared experience for the punters and make it easier for the cleaners. Against this back drop, landlords and breweries have to identify ways of drawing their target customers in; curry nights, dancing round your handbag, novelty vodkas, twiddly music and the craic, twigs in your beer.

The CAMRA pub's target is, of course, bearded men who like a seat when they go out, want little or no music as their hearing isn't as good as it used to be, a frothing ale pulled from a hand pump, like-minded people to talk to about beer with; I'm just missing the beard.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against real ale pubs. I've made special trips to places as remote as St Helens for no better reason than having a look inside somewhere I haven't been before. I've even been to the odd beer festival, which is a different matter entirely, odd being the operative word. That lazy, obvious bit about twigs is uncomfortably close to the truth here.

Themed though they might be, they provide the focus for an entertaining hobby and an outlet for fundamentalists who think that British pubs are about drinking proper, old-fashioned beer rather than just getting drunk or meeting new people (heaven forbid); the best pubs are the ones that serve the best beer. The ale drinker scans the bar for hand pumps and would rather die than drink beer served from a pressurised barrel, let alone lager; Guinness might do in an emergency (I'm not completely innocent of this lunacy myself, although I'm not a slave to it). It's the same zeal for relatively unimportant things that sees people travelling the length of Europe to watch the match in a bar after failing to get a ticket; pastimes mean a lot.

Other franchises cater for people who just want a good night out, not that there's anything wrong with that. There are exceptions, where it's possible to have a nice pint, get drunk and meet people all in the same place. The Swan, Liverpool's noted rock pub serves a wide range but it isn't really a real ale pub as the beer is usually shocking in there. Some, like Peter Kavanagh's, are still pretty much traditional local pubs; Yorkshire seems to be a stronghold for this too.

The conclusion I'm coming to in this matter of no real importance is that branding and theming are part of any business and even the ones that think they don't target their customers probably do so subconsciously. I don't want to feel like a member of a club when I go to the pub but it's not too much of a price to pay for them staying open.

This has reminded me, for no particular reason, of some favourite expressions. Mary has a favourite quote about existentialism, which I can't remember at the moment but is a cracker; I'll report back on that one. I am indebted to my brother for the second one, which is 'Of all the coterie sports, archery is surely the most esoteric.'; I couldn't have put it better myself! Not without a dictionary anyway.

So there you go; drinking real ale is a bit like archery.