Pub company

A pub chain is a group of pubs or bars with a brand image. Pubs within a chain are tied houses and can, generally, only sell products which the chain owner sanctions. The brand owner, often called a pubco, may be one company, or there may be multiple financiers and, the chain, itself, may be a division within a larger company, or a single operation. Examples include Chef & Brewer, Wetherspoons, Walkabout, Taylor Walker Pubs and All Bar One. Pubs in the chain are typically branded with the same name, however the former "Firkin" pubs tended to be variations on a theme including the word Firkin in the title. Wetherspoons pubs have individual names, with the Wetherspoons brand prominently displayed.

Pub chains are an evolution of the tied house system. Increasing competition between large brewers, in the latter half the nineteenth century, saw many breweries attempt to secure markets through the introduction of the tied house system. Tied houses are pubs which are required to buy their consumables from a particular brewery or supplier. Today, most tied houses are owned by pub chains, who align themselves with specific suppliers in order to obtain big discounts, although historically, the tied house system was one where the breweries bought pubs, in which to sell their products, and directly employed publicans to run them.

In the United Kingdom, there are two types of pub chain, reflecting the ownership of the pub and the style of operations. Pubs are either tenanted or managed.

Pub chains such as Punch Taverns and Enterprise Inns own thousands of tenanted pubs which are not branded to retain uniqueness. They are controlled in the brands of beer, ales and lagers and sometimes other beverages that they may sell.

Pub chains operating managed houses are frequently run as brands, located near a high street but rarely in predominantly residential areas.

Multiple-held pubs do exist in countries other than the United Kingdom, but due to most countries having different accepted systems of ownership and supply, they do not hold anywhere near the level of control over the market as they do in the UK.

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