‘Morning mate,’ came the cheery text just after noon on a warm Thursday afternoon. ‘I kicked off a bit early, so am done at The Salisbury. And am heading across the road to Mr Fogg’s. See you there.’

Oh God. I have to admit I’m more than a little apprehensive. For this was no normal pre-lunch snifter, rather the start of a potential 20 pub marathon with Dale Harvey, the man behind ‘the Great British Pub Crawl’.

His aim – to drink a half-pint in every single one of the UK’s approximately 39,000 pubs. But this is no beer-fuelled jolly, rather a crusade to highlight the very real plight of the great British pub.

At the end of the Second World War, there were 100,000 pubs across the land. Now, about 34 a week are calling last orders for the final time. We’re in danger of losing one of our iconic institutions, our beloved secular church. Harvey is on a one-man mission to stem that decline, one half-pint at a time.

Since he started in March 2022, he has visited 5,381 pubs. Of those, 500 have since closed. Today he’s in London’s tourist inferno of Covent Garden, and I’m coming along for the ride.

As I arrive at Mr Fogg’s, I have visions of the afternoon descending into some sozzled Hogarthian debauch.

My fears, though, are entirely unfounded. Harvey is as affable as he is charming, a hirsute, ebullient, hop-fuelled hero who has been in or around pubs since the age of 16.

‘There’s no role I haven’t done,’ he says cheerily, sipping a pint of Camden Hells Ale. ‘Chef, pot washer, pint-puller, manager.’

Tom Parker Bowles joins craft beer crusader Dale Harvey in his quest to save the Great British pub

But he is adamant that the mission is the main thing.

‘This is not about me. It’s all about highlighting all the pubs that are closing. I love everything about pubs, and they’re ingrained deep into our history, our culture, our national identity. I’m sick to death of seeing them closed down. So I go out to try to raise awareness of the importance of the pub.’

He has certainly found his calling. The bar is his pulpit, the beer list his bible. And it’s impossible not to be swayed by his passion. We drink up and wander to his next place, The White Swan, a Nicholson’s pub.

He doesn’t drink every day, taking Monday and Tuesday off, and using Sunday as a travel day. Still, ten pints a day does not exactly come with the doctor’s blessing. He shakes his head. ‘This is not about one long p*** up. Ten pints over the course of a 12-hour day is not that much, especially as the day involves a lot of walking.’

He pauses and takes a pensive sip. Then grins. ‘But it is the best job in the world.’

And it’s not just about the pints. He tells me the story of Dennis, a man in his 80s who lives in the Black Country. He had lost his wife to cancer, lived alone and had no children.

‘This pub is my lifeline,’ he told Harvey, ‘it keeps me going.’

His local was struggling and had decided to close on Monday and Tuesday. He explained: ‘When I leave after my pint on Sunday, and go home, I don’t speak to another living soul until Wednesday, when I come back in.’ Harvey looks down into his beer. ‘It breaks my heart.’

The Great British Beer Crawl started back in Nottingham, in 2022, where he lives with his wife Holly. They would go out to the pub every Saturday night but, despite the city having 140 pubs, would always end up in the same four places.

‘One night, I said we should go and visit the rest of them. Not just every pub in Nottingham, but in the whole of Nottinghamshire.’

That grew into every pub in the country. ‘I do have a plan of attack when I go to a town or city,’ he says, sipping a Beavertown Cosmic Drop.

‘On Monday, at home, I work out where I’m going, and ask people for recommendations. I’ll plan the day around those.’

Dale documents each pub on TikTok or Facebook – and the advertising revenue is what funds the Great British Pub Crawl.

I ask him what defines a pub. ‘It should be all about the beer, rather than food,’ he says. ‘The top priority should be about what you have on your pumps or in your casks. Sure, there are some incredibly successful gastro pubs, and that’s fine. But the beer comes first.

‘I don’t care what sort of pub it is. A village local, or a prefab dive or a sports bar or whatever. I want all pubs open, because every pub has its place, even if it’s not my cup of tea.’

Leaving The Nags Head in Covent Garden and heading off to the best pub

By pub number four, The Freemason’s Arms, Tom is starting to flag, but Dale is going strong

As we fight our way through the gormless tourist hordes to The White Lion, I ask if there’s anything he won’t drink. ‘Carling is the epitome of absolute British tripe. And it’s not even British. It’s Canadian. Everybody thinks it’s English. It’s brewed in Burton by Molson Coors who, as far as I’m concerned, are contributing to the downfall of the industry.’

He goes on to tell me how it sells a can of Carling to the supermarket for a mere eight pence.

‘That includes the brewing, the packaging, the canning, the transportation,’ he says. ‘The consumer pays 50p a can.’

But isn’t that just basic market economics?

‘Things need to be proportionate,’ he argues, ‘We are killing pubs by allowing the sale of cheap alcohol in supermarkets.’

The fact that the younger generation is turning away from alcohol is a worry. A recent YouGov poll found that 50 per cent of the public hadn’t been to the pub in the past month.

But Harvey places some of the blame at the feet of ‘pubcos’, large companies that own chains of pubs.

Allowed total free rein over prices, they take on new tenants, often forcing them to buy overpriced, sub-par beer, and making it ‘almost impossible to survive’.

Why, though, would they want a failing pub?

‘Pubcos are responsible for more than 80 per cent of the “empty” or “closed down” pub sites across the land,’ fumes the craft beer crusader.

This is the first time I’ve heard him raise his voice.

‘They know that if they leave a site empty to rot, they stand more of a chance of being granted planning permission for a change of use, and getting a developer to buy it.

‘So it’s in their interest to leave an asset closed while paying nothing for it, then making a killing on the sale.’

He reminds me that a third of the cost of a pint goes straight into the Government’s pocket, and when business rates are hiked, it hits both brewer and pub.

There’s also the issue of VAT on food and drink, which is crippling the whole hospitality industry. A reduction, at the very least, could mean the difference between survival and closure.

‘It really does upset me’, he says, as he pauses for a sip of beer.

‘I wrote an open letter to the Government three weeks ago, begging for its support, and it was shared around half a million times. But did I hear anything back from the Government? Did I hell.’

He does, though, see glimmer of hope. There are still ‘great’ new pubs opening. And he has nothing but praise for the likes of Bathams, a brewery in the Black Country, Everards in Leicestershire, Nicholson’s and Joule’s, who ‘keep buying failing Marston’s sites and making them thrive’.

By now, we’re in pub number four, The Freemason’s Arms, and I’m starting to flag.

‘To have lost 60 per cent of pubs since 1994 is unreal,’ Harvey says, as I get up to leave.

‘We simply cannot allow this to continue. The death of the British pub will be the death of our heritage. In two years’ time, it could be too late.

‘I will not stop until there are no more pubs to visit.’