Right, so it’s finally real — we have hard copies of the new book, as handed over in a Bristol pub last night in a vaguely cloak-and-dagger exchange.
The idea behind the book is that it tells the story of how pubs changed and developed between 1900 and the present via inter-war improved pubs, post-war estate pubs, theme pubs, Irish pubs, gastropubs, micropubs, and so on. The tone is similar to Brew Britannia with perhaps a little more flair in the prose — we’ve had three years extra practice, after all.
You can pre-order from Amazon UK now as well as various other places (list below). The official publication date is 15 September but it’s likely to go out earlier than that.

And (fingers crossed) it should also be available at the Great British Beer Festival bookshop next week. Assuming all goes to plan, we’ll be there signing copies on Tuesday afternoon (trade day) at around 1:30, and will be hanging about until about 7pm in case anyone misses that organised signing session. Come and say hello!

It’s a very pretty book, if we do say so ourselves — bright, tactile, with lots of crisp black-and-white photos, both from the archives and taken by us on our travels during 2015-2017. We’re delighted to say that some of the illustrations we most wanted to include made the cut after much detective work and bargaining by Joanna Copestick at Homewood Press.

Here’s that list of suppliers we know of so far:
- Amazon.de
- Amazon.jp
- Blackwells
- Guardian books
- Hive (supporting local bookshops)
- Telegraph books
Or, if you want a signed copy sent by post, drop us a line (contact@boakandbailey.com) and we’ll see what we can do.
4 replies on “20th Century Pub”
Good luck with the launch.
I’m in Bristol next week; anywhere you’d recommend to pick up a copy ?
Not yet, unfortunately, though we could probably arrange to leave one somewhere for you to pick up. Drop us an email.
Are you going to be selling signed copies at a premium via mail payment via PayPal? With a lengthy handwritten note on the inner cover? Folk might like that.
Hi both good to meet you at last y/day, hope lots of copies were sold. Pl send me separately jo copestick’s contact details cheers