Public houses, popularly known as pubs, are a significant feature of the history and culture of the English seaside resort of Brighton. The earliest pubs trace their history back to the 16th and 17th centuries, when present-day Brighton (now part of the city of Brighton and Hove) was a fishing village. Several coaching inns were founded in the 18th century as transport improved and communications with other towns developed, and around the same time other pubs became established in the fashionable Old Steine area in Brighton's early years as a resort. Many new pubs, originally beerhouses, were established after an Act of Parliament in 1830 loosened restrictions; two of these "Beerhouse Act" pubs remain in business. In the following decade the opening of Brighton's railway station provided another major boost to the pub trade, and by the late 19th century there were nearly 800 licensed venues in the town. Numbers declined gradually—as late as 1958 there was said to be "one pub for every day of the year"—and by the early 21st century around 300 pubs were still trading, with others having closed but surviving in alternative use.

Many of Brighton's pubs are architecturally important: a large number have either nationally or locally listed status. Some pubs have been converted from older buildings, usually houses; others are purpose-built; and some have been revamped into completely different styles, from Regency to Mock Tudor.

The first inn in the village of Brighthelmstone, which became modern Brighton, was the Cricketers Inn in The Lanes, Brighton's historic centre. It was founded in 1545 as the Laste and Fishcart and originally served the town's fishermen, but took its present name when it later became a coaching inn (evidence of the stables survived well into the 20th century). The Old Ship, now a hotel, also served as an inn and was documented as such in 1665, but may have even older origins: the Gilham family, which owned it in the 17th century, also owned "an unnamed house" in Brighton in 1559. North Street, which formed the northern boundary of the old town, was lined with coaching inns for many years until it ceased to be the main route in and out of Brighton in the early 19th century: the former Clarence Hotel, built as the New Inn in 1785, is the only survivor. Its stables could accommodate 80 horses. The White Lion, which stood approximately where the Clock Tower was built in 1888, was a 16th-century building which was converted into an inn by 1790, and possibly as early as 1757. After its demolition in 1874, a replacement was built nearby but was in turn demolished for the Regent Cinema—as was the Unicorn Inn, opened in the mid-18th century in a building dating from 1597.

In Brighton's early days as a seaside resort, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, the open land of Old Steine was its focal point. The town's oldest pubs were in this area, including the Castle Tavern—converted from a house in 1752—and the King and Queen, a former farmhouse which was renovated as an inn in 1779. The Castle Inn catered mostly for wealthy visitors who were in town for the season, while the King and Queen was used mainly by agricultural workers and soldiers in the adjacent barracks, who could be supplied with alcohol through a secret hole in the rear wall of the pub. The Royal Pavilion Tavern near the Castle Inn was converted from a house into a hotel between 1816 and 1820 and soon became a pub, taking the place of the Castle Inn which declined and was demolished in 1823.

The first stimulus to Brighton's pub trade was the rapid increase in stagecoach traffic in the 18th century, encouraged both by the increasing popularity and fashionable status of the town as a result of its royal patronage and by its increasing importance as the commercial centre of Sussex. In the 1780s, a ferry service between Brighton and Dieppe in France was started; mail coaches started running between the town and London; and the Prince of Wales came for the first of his many visits. Coaching inns such as the Star and Garter and the White Horse were established to cater for the increasing traffic, and the Castle Inn grew in importance. (None of these inns survive, and the present Black Lion Inn at Patcham, built in 1929, is a replacement on a different site of the historic coaching inn of that name at an important location on the main road to London.) Some pubs from the town's early days remain in business though: in The Lanes, Brighton's historic core, the Cricketers, the Black Lion and the Spotted Dog all existed by 1791 and are still open. In 1800 there were 41 licensed inns and pubs in Brighton, which at the time had a population of about 7,500.

The next significant event was the passing of the Beerhouse Act 1830, which allowed any member of the public to open their house or other premises as a beerhouse or beer shop (essentially a pub), and brew beer there if they wished, upon application to HM Excise and payment of a fee. The criteria were less strict than those applied to traditional inns and public houses. During the first week in which the Act was in force, 100 beerhouses were licensed in Brighton, which at the time had a population of about 40,000. Of these 100 newly established beerhouses, two survive as pubs: the Regency Tavern in Regency Square and the Druid's Head in The Lanes. The Druid's Head, originally an 18th-century detached house with its own garden, became the focus for postal carrier arrivals and departures after it was converted into an inn.

A decade later, the coming of the railway to Brighton further stimulated the local pub trade. Brighton station opened in 1841, and numerous pubs opened in the streets nearby: there were eight in Surrey Street alone by 1891, and Queen's Road "became lined with [them]" after it was laid out in 1845 (by 1891 there were 15 pubs on this road, which leads south from the station to the seafront.) Survivors around the station include the Queen's Head, which retains "its typical mid-19th-century façade", the Railway Bell, the Grand Central (formerly the Railway Inn), the Evening Star (where the Dark Star brewery was founded in 1994), the Battle of Trafalgar and the Sussex Yeoman. At Preston Park station, the Station Hotel opened in 1894. The Signalman (Railway Hotel) opposite London Road station is believed to have been built around the same time as the station opened in 1877. A pub called the Railway Arms on Freshfield Road was built close to the former Kemp Town railway station but was disused by 1945. The railway also inspired some pub names: the Good Companions (built in 1939) was named after a steam locomotive, and former pubs include the Locomotive Inn and the Railway Guard. Many other pubs commemorate local people and events: examples include the London Unity, named after a ship which rescued a hot air balloonist who had fallen into the English Channel in an attempt to fly from Brighton to France; the Queensbury [sic] Arms, behind the seafront, named after John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry who had a house nearby; the Constant Service, named after the local water company of that name; the Bat and Ball opposite The Level, named after the cricket and other bat-and-ball games which took place on The Level; and the Pedestrian Arms in the North Laine, whose landlord from 1869 was a "champion long-distance roadwalker".

By 1860, 479 pubs were recorded in Brighton. The number of licensed premises continued to rise: 774 were recorded in 1889 (one per 130 inhabitants) and about 700 were still open in 1900. By 1935 the number had reduced to 495. In 1958 it was said to be possible for a person "to use a different pub each day of the year without leaving the boundaries of Brighton"; but after World War II pubs everywhere went into decline as alternative leisure activities became more popular and land values rose, encouraging failing pubs to be demolished and their sites redeveloped. Many were lost during postwar urban renewal. For example, in 1930 there were nine pubs on Sussex Street in the Carlton Hill area, notorious for its slum housing; none survive. Carlton Hill itself, a road running through the area, had 13 in 1891; again, all have closed and most have been demolished. In 2005 about 300 pubs survived in Brighton.