IT sometimes seems as though time has almost been called on the British pub, judging by the massive number of closures of recent years.

Yet while many old haunts have vanished, some new businesses are looking to put the pub back at the heart of our social lives.

On Holdenhurst Road in Bournemouth, part of an empty former Blockbuster video store has been turned into the Firkin Shed.

It is one of a growing number of micropubs – a movement which, its founders say, “listens to its customers, mainly serves cask ales, promotes conversation, shuns all forms of electronic entertainment and dabbles in traditional pub snacks”.

Paul Gray runs the Firkin Shed with daughters Ruby, 21, and Amber, 19. “It started from drinking my home brew in my shed. A natural progression was to open a micropub,” said Mr Gray, 50.

The fit-out cost next to nothing, with Paul creating the wooden bar and furniture from materials rescued from the tip.

“I did a degree in fine arts. This is one of my installations,” he said.

The beers are a constantly changing list of cask ales, each of which is ‘on’ for only days a time. The pub has had 22 ciders on offer at once.

“We’re the only pub in Bournemouth that doesn’t do lagers or spirits – probably the only pub in Dorset,” he said.

He said listening to customers was the key to making a pub viable. “It’s not just sitting behind the bar and saying ‘This is what you get, this is what we want you to buy’,” he said.

The food consists of pasties and pies from Crow Farm in Ringwood. Smartphones are banned, unless you want to give a £1 fine to Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance.

Opening night at the Firkin Shed was so busy that people queued outside for up to 15 minutes. “We had to do ‘one in, one out’,” said Mr Gray.

His daughter Ruby said the prospect of other micropubs opening in the town could only be good. “We don’t see them as competition. We see it as a way of bringing all the real ale drinkers into Bournemouth,” she said.

The family believe this kind of small business can succeed where pubs reliant on big breweries have struggled.

“Traditional pubs are tied. Their rates are huge,” said Ruby.

Mr Gray added: “They would pay double what we pay for beer.”

Pubs like the Firkin Shed support local microbreweries, several of which have sprung up locally in recent times.

Another new development is the pub with its own microbrewery, such as the chain of seven Brewhouse and Kitchen premises.

Paul Forsdike, who started the Rising Sun gastropub in Deer Hay Lane, Poole, sold the business to Brewhouse and Kitchen and became its general manager. The company has also acquired the former Branksome Arms near Bournemouth’s Triangle.

Simon Bunn, managing director of Brewhouse and Kitchen, lists some of the changes that have hit traditional pubs. Satellite and cable TV, coupled with long interest-free credit on home improvements, have made staying in more attractive. The recession, hard on the heels of the smoking ban, changed people’s habits.

Pubs that were starved of investment were in no position to invest in improvements, he said.

“People’s expectations have changed about the environment that they’re going to be in. Why would you pay to be in an environment that’s worst than you would be in at home?” he said.

“When you get businesses that are underinvested and tired and don’t have nice toilets and the seats aren’t very comfortable, you don’t feel that special.

“Some businesses have been going down and down for years. They were only just about making a living – how are they going to get £200,000 to make it look nice and offer a good food menu?”

Brewhouse and Kitchens have a wide range of beers brewed on site and even offer tutored tastings.

“More and more consumers are looking for something that’s less mainstream and something that’s more interesting and different,” said Simon.

“We like to explain it as a grown-up pub for grown-up people. We don’t have £2 pints and £1.50 Jagerbombs.”

Wine is also important, but he said it was impossible to serve good wine for the prices seen in some premises.

“If you sell a wine for £7.99 a bottle, the money the producer would have got for that would be about one penny,” he said.

“When you get up to £10, £12, £15 a bottle the wine producer starts making a quid.”

The massive discounting of alcohol by supermarkets has been a serious threat to the viability of pubs. But even in the supermarket aisles, there has been a move upmarket, said Mr Bunn.

“If you go to the supermarket, you can see the craft beer is growing and growing,” he said.

“People are looking for quality rather than quantity. That’s what we’re seeing in our marketing.

“People aren’t coming out to get trollied – they’re going out to appreciate a nice environment and to have some good alcoholic beverages.”