British pubs seem to me (in my not very widely travelled experience)
to be
unique places. They are unlike most American
bars which seem
to be predominately places that people go to to get
drunk, and unlike
European café-bars which have a very different culture
associated with them.
Perhaps this is to do with the ludicrous licensing laws in England
and Wales which insists that all pubs have to close at 11pm (or 10:30pm
on Sundays), a measure that was brought in during the First World War
to prevent factory workers getting too hung over to go and build bombs
the next day, and which was never repealed.
It's worth noting that although "pub" is short for public house the
name is misleading. Although open to the public, pubs are still
private property and admission is at the discretion of the landlord
which is why it's possible to be barred from a pub (and if you've
never been barred you've not been trying hard enough!). The same strange
private/public mix means that a pub is classed as a "public area" in
terms of public order offences, one of which is
"being drunk in public". This is why it's theoretically possible to be
arrested for being intoxicated in a pub...