Moose On The Loose: Liverpool January 2024 - Mersey Paradise?

 With Cambridge United playing sort of nearby Blackburn Rovers in The FA Cup, I saw an ideal opportunity to visit a city I’d never been to. I’d heard good things about the Liverpool beer scene and secretly hoped that I’d bump into Jurgen Klopp, so I could give him a piece of my mind. Sadly I couldn’t locate Mr Klopp, but did manage to gain an insight into the Liverpool beer scene. 

We drove to Liverpool, via Bedford, and stayed opposite the Albert Dock. Here’s some culture:

Liverpool was a surprisingly pretty city. There’s the culture portion of this blog. 

Driving to the hotel we noticed The Deadly Crafty Beer Company, would be rude not to.

Upon arrival we were issued a beer menu! This place had a great range of mostly international craft beers. I opted for WCIPA from a Brooklyn micro brewery. It was a strong start to the weekend.

We got denied our next venue of choice, they were closing, and recommended that we visited The Red Lion. 

It looked promising. 

The Red Lion turned out to be the weakest pub of the weekend. The beer was served in average condition at best and in my least favourite type of pint glass. 

It was getting late and places were closing. Via the power of Untappd, we found a pub called The Grapes. 

The Grapes seemed to have a mostly student demographic, which made the sole over thirty year old amongst us, feel old. Brimstage Brewery Oatmeal Stout went down a treat. There was even time for a 3/5 Guinness before bed.

The next day was mostly spent in Blackburn, you can read about that Here. 

Back in Liverpool and hungry we headed to The Head of Steam. Eating at one of these has become a sort of tradition, ever since Sheffield Wednesday (a). 

I fancied a lager and opted for a beer cred. Krušovice was terrible. My burger was decent though! 

Next up we headed to Ship and Mitre. Easily the nicest pub we visited over the course of the weekend. 

Plum Porter, Nottingham Brewery, was in exceptional condition but tasted a bit too artificial. A lovely pub though, and one that I look forward to returning to. 

A small amount of research told me that there was a medical themed pub. Conveniently it was en route to the station, where Rach needed to be at 22:00.

 Doctor Duncan’s sure did have some medical theming. That wasn’t the best bit though. My friend, Dan, usually buys two half’s rather than a pint. You’d think that if you ordered a half of stout and a half of pale, they would come in separate glasses right? The barman here thought otherwise. He later explained that he likes to mix beers together. 

The Beartown Best Bitter was average. I wouldn’t visit here again, although it was better than The Red Lion. 

Next up, we visited somewhere we couldn’t get into the previous evening. 

A good range of beers and they do thirds! My pick of the beers was the Russian Imperial Stout, billed as a double coffee imperial stout, it was great! Things took a turn for the weird when a completely trollied Weird Al Yankovic lookalike arrived, fell asleep on the table, woke up and gave us some very questionable and unsolicited life advice. This was clearly a sign to move on.

The Roscoe Head is a pub that I’ve heard a lot about. It’s one of five pubs which has appeared in every edition of The Good Beer Guide and seems to be seen as a must visit in Liverpool. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t that impressed. The beer line up was frankly boring. I opted for cask Tetley, because I cannot recall ever having it. It was served in good condition but was a bland beer. I don’t think this pub was for me, although I cannot fault the quality of beer or service, the beer selection isn’t interesting enough. 

We managed to squeeze one more pub in, before heading back to the hotel.

The best beer on offer here was a 2/5 Guinness. Not worth the visit. We did find a Greggs open on the walk back to the hotel though. The following morning, after some culture, we found this:

The best coffee we found in Liverpool! 

We also found:

The Brimstage Trapper’s Hat was excellent! This pub proved to be a real highlight.

We finished our Liverpool weekend with a real gem.

Nerd shot

The service here was some of the best I’ve ever received. The sole staff member was friendly, knowledgable and went above and beyond for us. 

It was a fitting end to great (football result aside) weekend. Liverpool exceeded my expectations as a city. I wouldn’t say that it is a top tier beer city. Whilst it has some very good beer venues, in my opinion it cannot compete with places such as Manchester, York, Newcastle and Norwich. Thanks for reading.