Firkin Brewery

The Firkin Brewery was a chain of pubs in the United Kingdom. The original UK chain is now defunct, but a number of pubs operate under the Firkin name in other countries. The chain took its name from the firkin, an old English unit of volume.

Established in 1979 by David Bruce as Bruce's Brewery, the Firkin Brewery grew as a chain of mostly brewpubs offering cask ale. It was acquired by Midsummer Leisure in 1988, Stakis Leisure in 1990 and then by Allied Domecq in 1991, rapidly expanding thereafter.^[1] In 1999, Punch Taverns bought the entire chain and the rights to the Firkin brand,^[2] and then sold 110 of the pubs to Bass, leaving 60 Firkin pubs under Punch ownership.^[3] The brewery side of the chain was wound up, and in March 2001 Punch announced that the Firkin brand was to be discontinued.^[4]

Most of the pubs are now owned by Mitchells and Butlers (formerly Bass), and many have been rebranded as Scream, O'Neills or Goose pubs. Some of the Punch Taverns-owned Firkins were rebranded as Mr Q's or Bar Room Bar pubs. A small handful of establishments still retain the Firkin branding.

The pubs were distinguishable because they all followed the same naming convention: The ---- and Firkin, where ---- was usually a word, beginning with either "F" or "Ph", which had some connection to the pub building or to the local area.

The Firkin Brewery also gave out T-shirts for anyone who managed at least 12 pubs in the Firkin Crawl. A "passport", issued by the Brewery, would be filled with a stamp from each pub visited, and public transport directions to the nearest pub in the crawl would also be in the "passport". Although there was no stipulation in the rules that the 12 pubs had to be completed on the same day, this was often the goal of participants.

Firkin pubs outside the UK

North America

Firkin pubs in Canada and the United States operate under the Firkin Group Of Pubs franchise, a chain of English theme pubs founded in Ontario, Canada in 1987.^[5] The naming scheme for the pubs is similar to that of the UK chain (for example, "The Crown and Firkin", in Whitby, Ontario, Canada), and many Firkin Group pubs in fact share their names with former UK Firkin Brewery pubs. In the United States, the franchise pubs are named with "Firkin" first, as in "The Firkin & Fox" as opposed to "The Fox & Firkin".

The pub chain once credited itself as being the "largest and fastest growing" group of pubs in North America. Lately the claim is "largest & most dominant chain of traditional English pubs" in North America. About 10 pubs have closed out of the about 25 pubs that have opened since 2005. New pubs have opened about every 6 months, keeping the overall number of open pubs around 15. Typically the demographic ranges from parents with children during the day to an older drinking crowd in the evenings and late night. Although the menu is somewhat limited, the food is on pace with other more well known bar & grill restaurants.

The current list of active pubs in the United States as of December 2009 is listed below.

Australia

A number of independent English-style pubs in Australia use "Firkin" in their names, such as the Firkin and Hound in Alice Springs.^[6]

List of Firkin pubs

UK pubs

Note: The full name of the Ferret and Firkin, in Chelsea, was "The Ferret and Firkin in The Balloon Up The Creek". This referenced the original name of the pub - The Balloon - and its location, Chelsea Creek.

Canadian Firkin Pubs

U.S. Firkin Group Pubs

Continental European pubs

References

External links

• Firkin Group Of Pubs home page (US and Canada)
• List of Firkins with histories
• Pub Reviews at PubJury.com
• List of Firkin pubs in Greater London (1999)