Couple turn front room into one of UK's smallest pubs

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Hazel and Andrew Smith have converted the front room of their Upton-upon-Severn home into one of the UK’s smallest pubs.  The pair spent £50,000 turning the 11ft x 13ft space into J Maverick & Co, which holds just 20 people.  Hazel, 53, quit her job to run the micro-pub full time, serving craft ales and ciders from local breweries.  Housed in an 18th-century building, the cosy taproom features one table, a window seat, and a Victorian bookshelf-turned-fridge.  “It’s genuinely like having people into your house,” said Hazel.

Transcript

00:00I'm Hazel Smith, landlady of J Maverick Craft Ales and Ciders in Upton Pond Severn.

00:07Bought this place in 2022 with the idea of building a tap room and very small B&B.

00:15Absolutely loved the building and it was ideal for doing what we wanted to do because it has a great cellar,

00:21a couple of really beautiful high ceiling bedrooms and this room which was just ideal for making a tap room.

00:30A lot of craft ale bars look quite industrial by definition and we wanted this place because the building was built in 1780.

00:41It just wouldn't have lent itself to that so we wanted this to look like a Victorian pub essentially.

00:48So things like the mirrors above the bar, the tiles, the bookshelf where we knew the cans would look absolutely fantastic

00:56and Prudence, the deer above the door, all of those things just give it that quirky Victorian cosy feeling.

01:07And we love that about this place that it's just the colours of it and it's an interesting place to have a drink.

01:15We're not the smallest in the UK, there are a few smaller but we're the smallest tap room in the Midlands

01:22because it literally is the front room of our house with a bar and the bookshelves and the fridges etc.

01:30So yeah, smallest tap room in the Midlands.

01:34So we stock beers from a wide range of breweries and the shelves go from bitters, dark ales, stouts, imperial stouts

01:45from all over the UK and we have some in at the moment from the US and Sweden.

01:51From pale ales and lagers in the middle over to sour beers and ciders.

01:56And we try to stock beers that are unusual or that you can't really get anywhere else in the area.

02:04We also have a fairly extensive wine list because we realised quite early on that there's a massive demand for high quality wines.

02:14We love the breweries that we deal with, some of them are local like Budely Brewery, some of them like Omnipolo are in Sweden.

02:25And then you've got Vault City in Edinburgh, they do fantastic sour beers, really unusual.

02:30So we just love dealing with independent breweries that produce really high quality beer.

02:37And I think our customers love that as well.

02:40So we just love this day and give it a big surprise.

02:44We wish we love it too.

02:47So, let's go.

02:48So, let's go.

02:50So, let's go.

02:51So, let's go.

02:52We'll go.

02:53Let's go.

02:54Let's go.

02:55Let's go.

02:56Now what you do, let's go.

02:57Let's go.

02:58Let's go.

02:59Now, let's go.

03:01I'll go.

03:02No.

03:03So, let's go.

03:05So, let's go.

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