Pubs & Bars in Portsmouth

Despite a steady reduction over the years, the City of Portsmouth is still home to around 150 public houses and bars. These range from traditional Victorian corner houses to large ‘high street’ and waterfront bars, where daytime tourists and shoppers make way for younger drinkers at night.

Portsmouth’s traditional pubs have taken a severe hit over the last decade due to a number of factors affecting the pub trade nationally, such as the government’s now-abolished beer duty escalator, the smoking ban of 2007 and planning loopholes that allow pubs to be converted to retail premises without the need for planning consent. These issues, combined with recent economic decline, have hit the pub trade hard, forcing local licencees out of business and leading to the sell-off of many much-loved hostelries by the unsympathetic, cash-strapped national pub companies.

Portsmouth has a long brewing history and has been home to a number of sizeable brewing operations over the years. Sadly, the city’s last substantial brewhouse, Brickwood’s of Queen Street, Portsea, was closed by Whitbread in 1981, though Portsea Island has seen a number of microbreweries come and go in more recent times (see the Lost Breweries page). After an absence of any production for a few years, 2007 saw Portsmouth once again become a brewing city with the opening of Irving & Co in Farlington. Since that time we have seen a resurgence of interest in quality cask beer in the city and a growing number of brewing operations are now emerging.