Popination Representation

a series of unhinged personal essays disguised as pub reviews. Today: More About The Moon Under Water.

I’m hereby the Denver Metro Area correspondent for the Moon Under Water podcast! Let me tell you about it:

(My bit is around 20:51ish, but I recommend listening to the whole thing.)

The Moon Under Water is an eminent pub-themed podcast out of the UK that interviews all kinds of guests and has them construct their dream pub of an ideal realm. I wrote about them awhile ago, just before the co-hosts switched out to the current ones. They have lauded my Substack before, when they read a section of ‘Utepils’ on a previous episode, and in an earlier one than that, my pre-Popination description of Terminal Bar.

These days they’ve put out a call for something called a Pub Correspondent, which is basically a listener/fan who will supply news and reviews of pub life in a certain region. Regions have included everything from half a street in Liverpool and the entire city of Berlin. And so, since I’m a big fan and here I am doing weekly Popinations already, I decided to apply to be their Denver Metro Area pub correspondent. And I was thrilled to have them accept!

In last week’s mailbag episode, they read a big piece of my Popination about The Crypt, and gave me such a lovely compliment on my writing that I couldn’t stop smiling the rest of the day. So now I’m their Denver correspondent (their only US one so far, I believe).

Call of (Correspondent) Duty

I take my (who cares if it’s fake) new title and responsibilities as a MuW correspondent very seriously. As such, I want to plumb the depths of a pub-related conundrum that has been rolling around in the ol’ noggin for some time now.

The first puzzle I’d like to tackle isn’t exactly about Denver pubs, but about pub terminology and pub culture in general, as it’s connected to British pubs and my own love of dive bars. To wit: Does England (or, the UK or the British Isles as a whole) have anything they’d call a dive bar? And does America really have pubs? Like, really? Hang on, I’ll explain:

Fun Fact: QI is one of my very favorite silly yet brainy bits of whimsy from across the pond.

Deep Dive (Bar)

The first Popinations posts were just a twofold vocab word post, but upon popular request, it’s turned into a full, seemingly neverending series that comes out on Mondays here on Zuko’s Musings. The first Popinations were about the vocab word, and included very brief descriptions of some important pubs in my past. Now, it’s a new adventure every Monday.

Popination in this case, as it says above in the QI definition, refers to frequenting taverns. And that makes me ask a few questions: What’s a tavern, as opposed to a bar or a pub? I tried exploring this into a definition in the very first Popination:

I’ve gone down the linguistics rabbit hole only slightly on these terms and it’s pretty much: use “pub” when you’re talking about something UK flavored, “bar” when you’re in the US (especially if they don’t serve food), and “tavern”…well it seems like nobody really uses the term anymore, though it used to refer to an old-school inn, where you’d get your pint and vittles and also a room for the night. Like how all D&D games begin. And a “saloon” refers to specifically a Wild West flavored bar. 

Pub, Bar?

What’s the difference? Is there a difference here in the US? It seems like here, we refer to more British flavored bars as pubs, and more Wild West bars as saloons. At least, that’s what I’ve found both in use and online. And a bar can refer to simply the architectural structure of the bar itself, even if inside a restaurant, or a whole place that serves drinks but not food. Does that sound right?

Now, the MuW lads are doing a little pubbing contest between the two of them (52 pubs in the year) and they seem to have some strict criteria for what counts as a ‘pub’ for their contest. Let’s see if I can parse this out: Is it true that most UK pubs don’t serve food, as a rule? So that’s a criterion, right? And is there a rule about look/decor? When the Lads are in Europe, for example, and drink wine at a café, they tend to not put that in their pub count. And there was one questionable pub recently that they didn’t count, in that it was a private one; like, it was on a friend's property. I guess I understand that, but I’m still unclear what makes a pub different than a bar. I have a feeling it’s a cultural flavor that I don’t understand. 

Dive Bar

Do they have dive bars in England? In the UK? In Ireland? Does this term even exist across the pond?

Here, allow me to reiterate the Dive Bar Dick’s criteria for what makes a Dive Bar (I went through these criteria in detail when I Popinated the Dirty Duck in Denver):

• old (exterior)

• should look closed/condemned

• dark inside

• old & dusty (decor, interior)

• no food

• basic (and cheap) drinks

• weird restrooms

• cash only

For more details about each of these criteria, check the Dive Bar Dick out, or look over my Popination of the Dirty Duck. But! This is the basic list, with the caveat that I don’t in fact agree that ‘cash only’ is a requirement for being a dive bar—in my opinion, cards are so ubiquitous today that cash only seems like a relic. Which, okay I guess you could argue that a dive bar is perforce a relic, too, but. 

So is the dive bar just an American thing? It doesn’t seem to be regional, here: you can find dive bars across the whole vast country (and the Dive Bar Dick has). But I don’t know that a dive bar does (or could) exist in ye olde English pub culture. I mean, the requirement of it needing to be old both inside and out has got to be way more normal in a country like England, where many of their pubs just in London alone are no doubt older than the entire United States as a country, let alone its bars. 

CONCLUSION: Some questions for The Lads:

• What’s the real difference between a pub and a bar? And why do those European cafés, at which you drink a glass of wine, not count? (My Popinations have been pretty loose, I admit—I’ve done everything between a theatre lobby bar and a fancy restaurant bar, but I’m getting that in the UK there’s a very serious distinction that makes ‘pub’ something different. 

• Do you have dive bars over there? Are they called that?

• A normal ABV for a beer in Denver is between 5-7%. Is that insane for you? It seems, having listened to MuW for a while now, you have way more mildly alcoholic beers in particular over there, and there’s less of a social stigma for drinking non or naught. Thoughts?

• What’s the legal drinking age in England, and is it enforced? Here, it’s 21. And in college towns in particular, it’s severely enforced. 

• I’m very interested in the concept of the Third Place. What are your thoughts about that?

(Note: thanks to this article for the image of Nob Hill Inn I used for my featured photo.)