Supping nostalgia

An original R Cains poster

I see that the Cains name is to be revived with a new brewery set up within the old Higsons Brewery building where the most recent incarnation of Cains was brewed until 2013. Its disappearance wasn't much mourned, following as it did a drastic and sudden drop in quality; I wrote about it at the time here.

An entrepreneur called Andrew Mikhail, owner of bars and hotels in Merseyside including Punch Tarmey's, has acquired the name and states that the brewery will create 200 jobs and "partly model itself" on the Guinness Brewery visitor attraction in Dublin. If the 200 jobs do materialise, it would be a fairly sizeable operation.

The big old Higsons brewery building, Grade II listed, is being developed into a brewery village, which I wrote about in 2013 here. Mr Mikhail has given no indication yet whether he will revive the previous Cains beers or start from scratch with new recipes, as the latest manifestation of Higsons has done. I tried one of the new Higsons beers recently and didn't think it was anything special.

I'd be very surprised if this announcement will engender much excitement locally, but I'll save my judgement until I've tasted the product. This will be the second revival of the Cains name. The original Cains ceased to be brewed in Liverpool in the 1920s, but the name was called out of retirement in 1991. As for Higsons, we are now on the fourth version, if you include the original that was destroyed by Whitbread. I wonder how many times you can resuscitate a brand before its credibility evaporates completely?

Generally I don't see much point in using an old name and producing beers that have no resemblance to the originals; it's simply cashing in on brand nostalgia, but I suppose there's no harm in it because your beers will have to stand or fall on their quality: people won't sup solely for nostalgic reasons indefinitely.

Never say never

I've just come across an article in the Liverpool Echo on-line about breweries in Merseyside. They list nineteen, and I have to say I didn't realise there were that many; there's even a couple I hadn't heard of before. I must keep my ear closer to the ground.

Here in Southport, there are three: Southport Brewery, a veteran now of 11 years; Parker Brewery in Banks just outside the Southport boundary, but proclaiming its Southport credentials; and the newest, 3 Potts, which is a near neighbour of Southport Brewery. Other breweries nearby include Burscough Brewery in West Lancs, Neptune Brewery in Maghull, Red Star Brewery in Formby, and Rock The Boat Brewery in Little Crosby. More details of these and other Merseyside breweries can be found in the Echo's article.

The most interesting point about all of this is that before 2003, none of these breweries existed at all. After the old Higsons Brewery in Liverpool was closed by Whitbread in 1990, Merseyside and the surrounding areas didn't have a single brewery, and I certainly recall the Liverpool CAMRA branch mourning the loss of all its breweries in a city that had once proudly had quite a few. Although some of us tend to think we know about this subject, none of us ever anticipated the resurgence that has occurred.

I've had beers from most of the breweries listed in the article, and haven't been disappointed. Some aren't entirely to my taste, but that's not the same as saying they're no good. In contrast, some of the old regionals and locally based nationals that we had, such as Matthew Brown, Greenall Whitley and Tetley Walker produced at best mediocre beer, and at worst unpleasant slop (Higsons was the honourable exception). Such an accusation cannot be aimed at these newer breweries, whether you like their products or not.

As for all our previous mourning over the passing of the era of brewing in and around Merseyside, never say never.

The one odd note in the article is that it states that the owners of Cains say they hope to be brewing again within two years. My message to them would be: either seriously get your act together or don't bother. Cains beers became utter rubbish before the company went bankrupt for the second time. While they were thereby destroying any remaining brand loyalty, far superior competitors appeared on the scene. My view is that in the changed beer scene in Merseyside, they'd have a hard job re-establishing themselves.

Cains brewery village plans approved

Cains workers demonstrating after being
sacked without notice or compensation

The plans by the Dusanj brothers to convert the old Cains Brewery site in Liverpool into a brewery village and tourist venue have been approved. The brewery was closed 6 months ago with debts of £8 million (previous post here) and the workers laid off in a particularly shabby way without compensation (previous post here). The BBC report briefly describing the plans and their approval by the council is here.

Both the Liverpool mayor, Joe Anderson and the MP for Liverpool Riverside, Louise Ellman, have welcomed the proposed redevelopment, even though partners and operators for the cinema, hotel and supermarket have yet to be found. The BBC article states that the existing Brewery Tap pub would also be restored to produce traditional ales. This sounds like a microbrewery to me. One of the owners, Sudarghara Dusanj, claims the redevelopment will attract 2.5 million visitors per year, benefiting the city's economy by £25 million. If you accept that, consider the following:

• The Dusanj brothers have gone bankrupt twice in five years, not a track record to give potential investors and partners confidence.
• The brothers originally stated that Cains beers would be brewed elsewhere under licence. While this is not an adequate substitute for a brewery on the site, it never happened.
• The Cains brand was run into the ground after the first bankruptcy and I was told that the beers were made using the cheapest ingredients they could find. Previously good beers became very poor.
• 38 staff were made redundant without payment and had to claim payouts from a Government fund.

We're never going to get the brewery back as it was, so I hope this scheme succeeds, but given the brothers' record, I'm not putting any money on it.

And this is legal?

Owed £5 million by Cains

Cains Brewery is no more: the liquidators have been called in after it was wound up with debts of around £8 million, consisting of £5 million for excise duty, VAT and PAYE and £3 million to 44 other creditors. This development won't surprise anyone who has been following Cains' declining business this year, which I've written about as recently as last month. I said then that "Managing director Sudarghara Dusanj told them [staff he'd made redundant] to apply to the government’s Redundancy Payment Scheme, but this usually only pays redundant workers when a company has actually failed." Since then, as certain as night follows day, this company has failed. The BBC has more details here, with quite a good short video clip from North West Tonight in which Sudarghara Dusanj tries to claim that the relationship between his management team and the workforce was good. This doubtless explains why their workforce found out they no longer had jobs by phone call, text or even by reading it in the Liverpool Echo, and why they will be getting no redundancy payments from the company, not even those with long service.

The brewery and land are leased from a different company, which is also owned by the Dusanj brothers who hope to redevelop the buildings and site into a brewery village: they intend to restore the original Grade II listed building to house a craft brewery, a hotel, digital studios, a delicatessen-type food hall,  independent shops, a sky bar on the roof, and a supermarket with flats above. I'll believe it all when I see it. 

Two bankruptcies in five years is not a good record, but in both cases the material assets were safely allocated to a separate company that put them safely beyond the reach of the liquidators, so don't expect to see the brothers turning up at Toxteth jobcentre in the near future. In their wake they leave a sacked workforce, a discredited brewing name and a lot of creditors out of pocket, some of them small businesses.

There is around £100,000 worth of beer in vats in the brewery that will have to be destroyed; now that the workforce has been sacked, I suppose there's no one to finish it off and sell it. They are, apparently, negotiating a deal to have Cains beers brewed elsewhere under licence but, as I've asked a couple of times recently, with the decline in quality in recent years, will anyone be interested? 

Pay up, Cains!

Cains workers demonstrate outside Dr Duncans in Liverpool

Cains Brewery in Liverpool is looking ever more disreputable as we learn precisely how production is being ended at the Parliament Street site (I've previously written about the suspension of brewing here). Thirty eight workers were told by phone that they were to lose their jobs and were offered neither the money owed them since the Dusanj brothers closed the brewery, nor any redundancy or holiday pay; some had worked for Cains for 20 years. Managing director Sudarghara Dusanj told them to apply to the government’s Redundancy Payment Scheme, but this usually only pays redundant workers when a company has actually failed. 

Their union, Unite, organised a demonstration outside Dr Duncan's, a Cains' pub in the city centre, to make the public aware of what was going on and to urge drinkers to boycott the company's beers until the workers had received what they are owed.  

Franny Joyce, a Unite regional officer, said: “The aim was to take our fight to the streets of Merseyside to explain what’s going on and ask people to support us. We achieved a further goal, because due to our protest they closed their flagship pub, Doctor Duncan’s. We didn't get one negative response from the public to our requests for support.”

Cains argues that it has had to suspend brewing due to an “extremely competitive and difficult trading environment”, especially after it had lost key contract work. The owners say brewing will resume on the site as long as they get planning permission for their £50 million brewery village development (I've written about that here). One factor they don't mention is that their sales of real ale have been in decline for a while because the beer has become utterly mediocre with little resemblance to how it used to be. The responsibility for this decline rests not with the workforce, but with the use of cheap ingredients to cut costs, a management decision. So bad is it that one of Cains' own pubs in the city centre stopped selling Cains beers several years ago.

All I can say is that Cains just keeps getting worse. Other people's jobs are something that this company seems to regard just as commodities to be used and discarded at will, and they've done it before: the reverse takeover of Honeycombe Leisure, which went pear-shaped in 2008, resulted in quite a few licensees losing their livelihoods and homes. 

The question Cains management should be asking themselves is this: if they do get the go-ahead for their brewery village plan and they manage to restart brewing on the site, will anyone be interested? With repeated examples of bad business practice by the two brothers who own the brewery, accompanied by the decline in the quality of their products, the very name of Cains is in danger of becoming a liability. In the meantime, the dole queues in Liverpool have grown that bit longer.

Goodbye Cains? Probably

When the old Higsons brewery was closed down by Whitbread more than twenty years ago, there was a genuine sadness among local beer drinkers because everyone thought that was the end of a long tradition of brewing in the city. When a Danish brewing company reopened the brewery and relaunched the old Cains name, there was a tremendous outburst of enthusiasm and - pleasingly - the beers were good. Unfortunately, the company became loss making, but was saved from closure by the Dusanj brothers. Initially this was something that was welcomed, especially as the brothers announced their commitment to real ales: I recall that at the CAMRA AGM in Southport in 2004, one of the Dusanj brothers gave a speech and a powerpoint presentation reiterating that commitment, declaring that Cains was a friend of CAMRA. What happened a couple of years later I've copied from Wikipedia:

A reverse takeover of ... pub operator Honeycombe Leisure PLC was agreed by the company’s board in June 2007, giving Cains access to Honeycombe's 109 outlets ... On 7 August 2008 the company was placed in administration following problems caused by an unpaid tax bill. Negotiations with its bank failed to reach a conclusion that would have avoided administration. The brewery and eight original pubs have since bought back by the Dusanj brothers.

They had overreached themselves and, as bad creditors, they had to buy their ingredients wherever they could for cash - credit was not an option. The end result was that their beers were brewed on the cheap with whatever ingredients they could lay their hands on, and quality went through the floor. Beers that I had previously enjoyed, such as Cains FA, Sundowner and Raisin Beer, became utterly mediocre.

Cains has now mothballed its brewery, pending the ambitious redevelopment plan that I wrote about here. They have completely abandoned the supermarket own brand trade, once crucial to its financial stability, but now loss-making, and are looking to find someone else to brew their real ales under contract while they redevelop the site. 38 jobs have been lost, but with the promise that their plans will create 800 new jobs; the Liverpool Echo reports on the story here. Unfortunately the track record of this management team cannot inspire the people of Liverpool with confidence. The worry is that, once they have contracted out the production of the beers, will they ever come back to Liverpool? A bigger worry for Cains must be whether anyone will want them back? Liverpool now has several small breweries producing beer that is far superior to anything from the Cains stable. Just owning the old Higsons brewery site will no longer ensure loyalty to Cains beers, whether they are brewed in Liverpool or elsewhere under contract. Closing their brewing operation down and getting their beers brewed under licence is precisely the wrong thing to be doing. Having beer brewed under contract elsewhere doesn't inspire confidence among real ale drinkers: outsourcing mediocre brews is a double risk. To regain credibility among beer drinkers, they should be developing good recipes locally.

My view is that this may well be the end of the line for Cains as a brewer. I can't claim to be surprised, but I am disappointed that yet again Cains seems to have made a complete hash of running its business.

Cains plans for a brewery village

The brewery in its Higsons heyday

Liverpool's Cains Brewery has announced plans to restore its original Grade II listed building to house a craft brewery, a hotel, digital studios, a delicatessen-type food hall,  independent shops and a sky bar on the roof. The Brewery Tap will be extended and some sheds on Parliament Street will be demolished to make room for a supermarket with flats above; other developments are envisaged as part of the scheme. Apparently the company is struggling to maintain the huge brewery site, much of which is currently under-used, and have said that if planning permission is refused, the long-term future of the brewery would be at risk. 

As part of this proposal, they will stop brewing supermarket own brand beers, as such business now makes a loss. This isn't a surprise when you consider the price of supermarket own brands, although I do remember on a brewery trip a number of years ago being told that the brewing of real ale was supported by supermarket production; things must have changed since then. They're hoping to increase production of their real ales by as much as 300%. 

You can read the whole story in the Liverpool Echo.

It's difficult to know what to think of this. Cains Brewery is an attractive nineteenth century red brick building, formerly home of the long gone but fondly remembered Higsons brewery, and if the options are this plan or closure, then obviously redevelopment is better. Liverpool's elected mayor, Joe Anderson, has given the plan his blessing, but I take no comfort from that, considering his unimpressive record of protecting Liverpool's architectural heritage.

The plans would involve 15 job losses out of the 56-strong workforce, but the company, perhaps ambitiously, anticipates creating up to 800 new jobs overall. But we've heard that kind of claim before, only to find the reality is considerably less than the spin.

While it sounds good that they envisage expanding real ale production, they must massively improve the quality. Their beers have been mediocre ever since the firm went bankrupt a few years ago, whereas their rivals in the Merseyside area are producing far superior beers. I write that as someone who used to enjoy Cains beers. With real ale, "never mind the quality, feel the width" is not a good strategy. Just ask Tetleys.

Review of my ale and music year

Around this time of year, bloggers tend to do a review of the year. I don't feel able to speak generally about the whole country on the enormous subjects of music and ale, so I've decided to write a short review of my personal year.

Best Folk Club: Southport's Bothy, which is one of the oldest folk clubs on the country, continues to provide, within the limits of what a voluntary, non-profit making organisation can, an excellent range of guests withing the folk scene, using the broadest definition of that term. Traditional singers, singer-songwriters, old established favourites and rising young stars make up the guest nights. In between guest nights, there are singers nights when anyone can get up to play a couple of songs and tunes: the quality of singers nights is such that some people prefer them to the guest nights. The format hasn't altered since the club was founded in 1965, and it has clearly passed the test of time.

Favourite pub: this has to be the Guest House in Union Street, Southport. Despite being a pubco tenancy, Gail the licensee consistently has up to 11 real ales on, which usually constitute a mixture of microbrewery offerings alongside more familiar regionals. This does mean that occasionally the selection is not especially exciting for lovers of microbrewery beers, but generally I'm more than happy with what's on offer; I don't know of any tenancy that can provide such a range. The pub itself is just over 100 years old, largely unaltered with wood-panelled walls and it hosts acoustic music nights on the first and third Mondays of each month.

Favourite pub in Liverpool is harder: the Ship and Mitre on Dale Street has an excellent range but suffers from a ill-judged 1960s refurbishment, while the Lion on Moorfields also has a good range and is an attractive mini-gin palace as well. The former pub hosts the Woody Guthrie Folk Club (last Thursday of the month), while the latter has my acoustic song session on the 2nd Thursday of the month.

Favourite beers: around the 4% mark, I'd mention Southport Golden Sands (4.0%) and Liverpool Organic 24 Carat Gold (4.2%). My favourite strong beer has to be Liverpool Organic Shipwreck, a 6.5% IPA. Honourable mentions go to two Wigan breweries: Prospect for consistently good beer and Allgates for its significant improvement. The formerly good Cains of Liverpool continues to be disappointing.

Best Beer Festival: for my money, the Wigan Beer Festival. Although it's in a sports hall with less atmosphere than the now redeveloped Wigan Pier venue, it makes up in so many other ways: much more extensive and interesting range of beers than before, ample seating for all, regular courtesy bus between the festival and the town centre, and it's friendly to boot. To any who still miss the old venue: the festival was outgrowing Wigan Pier even before it moved, and would have no chance of fitting in there now even if it were available. The National Winter Ales Festival in Manchester and the Southport Beer Festival also worth visiting.

Favourite Music Festival: this has to be Whitby Folk Week. I've been going since 1988 (with one year missed since). The setting of a beautiful old fishing town is unique with a good range of guests and events in various venues across the town, pub sessions for songs and tunes all over the town, frequent folk dancing in the streets, plus for me the annual Lunchtime Legends gig in the Elsinore, which has been a fixture of the folk week fringe since 1992. Also extremely good was Fairport Convention's Cropredy Festival, which had a completely different character: a big stage in a field with a succession of acts invited by Fairport throughout the weekend. Their big-name guests this year included Squeeze, Joan Armatrading, Bellowhead, Richard Thompson, The Saw Doctors, Dennis Locorriere, Big Country, Ashley Hutchings Morris On, and Richard Digance, plus a load of newer artists, most of whom I hadn't heard of but who were all pretty good.

Best non-folk gig: rock band Karnataka whom I saw in St Helens. Hint of progressive and hint of Goth, but mainly themselves. If you recall All About Eve, Karnataka are vaguely in that style. A seasoned band with good material and a lead singer, Hayley Griffiths, who has a beautiful voice.

Biggest disappointment of the year: being put on tablets in April for four weeks with no drinking for a month. During this period, I went to stay with my friend Geoff in London, but the expected pub crawls didn't materialise and the trip to Fullers Brewery was interesting but lost something with me on the wagon. I also opted out of a Wigan beer festival helpers' trip to Ulverston Brewery during this period, and I cut short my attendance at a friend's stag night once I'd had my fill of pub coffee.

Best apocalypse: 21 December, which was when the Mayans had supposedly foretold our doom.

Favourite blog: after this one? Too close to call!

All the best for 2013!

Cains no longer able

I visited two real ale pubs today, the Railway in Formby and the Arion in Ainsdale, both of which have improved dramatically in recent years. The Arion had been closed down for 18 months until about a year ago, and some of us thought it might have been closed for good. It now serves four real ales and is happy with the way they're selling. The Railway has increased its range considerably in the last couple of years and regularly has 6 to 9 real ales on at any time.

Both licensees commented that more women and young people were choosing real ales, especially as there was more variety nowadays. What interested me most was that both licensees independently stated that they had stopped stocking Cains beers because of a serious decline in quality, with even casks bursting open and spraying their contents all over the cellar. My own impression as a drinker was that quality went seriously downhill after the reverse takeover by Cain's of Honeycombe Leisure went pear-shaped and the business went into administration, hastened by an unpaid tax bill.

I particularly used to like Cain's FA, Triple Hop and Sundowner beers: I haven't see the last two for a while, but I did try the FA a few months ago in the Guest House in Southport, and it was still disappointing. A year or two ago I tried a new beer, Liver Bird, in Cain's Brewery Tap, but wasn't impressed at all. You don't see Cain's beers around as often as you used to; I haven't seen it in the Cain's pub on Renshaw Street, the Dispensary, for ages. Apparently when Cain's was in turmoil, they got permission to buy their beer from anywhere just to keep the pub open, and neither the licensee or the customers particularly want Cain's back, leading to the bizarre situation that a Cain's pub that has won CAMRA Liverpool's Pub of the Year award in Liverpool doesn't actually sell Cain's.

I know that Cain's has recruited a brewer from Brain's of Cardiff. I must give their beers another go to see whether this has led to any improvement, but even if it has, the problem for Cain's is that a bad reputation is very hard to shake off. It's sad that the company that inhabits the former home of the legendary Higson's beers has come to this sorry state. I expect that the production of own-brand tinned beers for supermarkets, which has always constituted a large proportion of Cain's production, is what keeps the company afloat.

Cains not so able

I noticed that Cains FA was on sale in the Guest House last night.  It used to be there quite often, but as I haven't seen it on the bar for a good while now, I decided to try a pint.  I was very disappointed:  it used to be a dry golden ale whose taste belied its strength (5%), and I usually stayed on it all night when it was available.  Now it is a mediocre beer, dull-looking with a cloying flavour, and I really can't see much resemblance to the beer I used to like.  The Cains website states:  "A Golden coloured very 'English' golden ale with a beautifully smooth mouthfeel.  Brewed with the finest English malts, the beer is brewed with a fuller flavour to delight the mouth and stimulate the tongue."  Perhaps at one time, but not now.

I have been told that when Cains went into meltdown after their failed reverse takeover of Honeycombe Leisure caused them to be placed in administration in 2008, they couldn't get credit.  As a result, the recipes went out of the window, replaced by the nearest approximations they could manage with whatever cheap ingredients they could lay their hands on for cash.  I've no idea how accurate this is, but there's no doubt in my mind that the beers became uniformly mediocre at around that time.

With several good microbreweries in and around the Merseyside area producing far superior beers, Cains really needs to do a lot better if it wants to be a contender on the local real ale scene.

Grousing About Famous Pubs

Famous Grouse Whisky and the Sunday Telegraph have run a poll to find the top 100 famous pubs in Britain, whether they be famous for historic or just quirky reasons. Two Southport pubs feature:

The Fishermen's Rest, Weld Road. The pleasant name, which suggests fishermen having a relaxing pint after a hard day's work, has a much more tragic origin. It commemorates the Eliza Fernley lifeboat disaster of 1886 when the boat foundered while trying to rescue people from the stricken Mexico of Hamburg and 14 crewmen perished. Their bodies were laid out in here, then part of the Palace Hotel (demolished in 1969, except for this building). The lost men are recalled by the 14 small brass mermaids which hold the bar handrail in place. I attended a centenary commemoration of this tragedy in 1986 held in the pub itself.

It's a while since I've been in here, but I recall it as a pleasant and comfortable smallish pub; I've been told that its real ale range has recently been much improved, although I have yet to check for myself.

The Lakeside Inn, The Promenade. This pub is described as the smallest pub in Britain and has a Guinness Book of Records certificate on the wall. It usually sells London Pride and Tetley Bitter. It has fine views over the Marine Lake and outside drinking areas, including a balcony that overlooks the lake. It was, I believe, formerly the club house for a sailing club before getting a pub licence. I recall going in there with my friend Sam a few years ago during the Waterloo Cup, hare coursing's big annual event. It was full of Irishmen and women all drinking either lager or Guinness; Sam and I were the only ones drinking ale. What sounded like illegal betting was taking place by mobile phones, and one Irish gent asked whether we were down for the coursing. "No," I replied, "we just live here." The room went quiet for a couple of seconds, after which we were viewed with suspicion and no one spoke to us again, probably seeing us as potential saboteurs or interfering journalists.

I was in there with my guitar on Christmas Eve, when we had a singalong session, but the pub is most popular in summer, as you'd expect.

Other pubs listed in the poll include Ye Cracke, Rice Street, Liverpool 1, formerly frequented by John Lennon. Always a good range of ales in here, and the walls have pictures by local artists. One room has been called the War Office for over 100 years ~ it was where people who bored everyone by talking about the Boer War were banished. This was the first pub in the centre of Liverpool that I drank in (December 1972, as I recall). In the 1990s, my union branch committee used to drink in here after our meetings.

The Philharmonic, Hope Street, Liverpool is justly famous with its ornate architecture, carved wooden panelling, art deco gates and famous marble gents toilets. It also has several real ales on. It was built by the original Robert Cain brewery in the 19th century, but has no link to the modern Cain's brewery; you can still see RC engraved in the stone work outside. John Lennon once said that the price of fame was "not being able to go to the Phil for a drink". It's simply the most spectacular pub I have ever been in.

The Lower Angel, Buttermarket Street, Warrington, was where I sometimes used to drink when a student in the 1970s; it is a virtually unaltered pub. In the 90s it was run by Charlie Oliver, who used to to run the Old Ship on Eastbank Street, Southport. Charlie always kept a good pint, and although he no longer has the place, the beer was good last time I was in there.

The survey is a just a bit of fun, not to be taken too seriously, although I am surprised the excellent Marble Arch in Manchester isn't listed. You can find the whole thing here ~ why not look up where you live?

Birthday pub crawl

On Friday, I was in Liverpool for my mate Steve’s annual birthday pub crawl, although a year or two ago we never got out of the first pub. This year we gathered at lunchtime in the spectacular Philharmonic pub (on the corner of Hope Street and Hardman Street) ~ there are some pictures here & here, including of the famous gents’ toilets. The fine workmanship in this pub was apparently done by craftsmen who normally worked on the luxury liners.

My first pint was Harviestoun Hoptober Fest, which was a dry, light 4.0% beer. I was enjoying this when it ran out. The Brains SA tasted a bit flat and tired, but the Hobgoblin was acceptable. There were about 4 or 5 beers on, and when we left, I noticed the Hoptober Fest was back on ~ I could have had more!

The Fly In The Loaf was next. This former bakery used to be a wine bar called Kirklands, until Okell’s Brewery of the Isle of Man took it over a few years ago. I had Fuller’s London Porter, which I don’t recall drinking before. I tend not to drink dark beers, but this tasted good without the overpowering heavy flavour that some dark beers have, and I happily stuck with it. The Fly, on Hardman Street, has several guest beers alongside the Okell’s offerings. I like this pub, except of course when big screen sports are on.

A stroll around the corner into Renshaw Street took us to the Dispensary, a Cain’s pub that always has several guests. Holden’s Golden Glow was my choice there, and a pleasant mellow beer it was too. As Steve pointed out, this pub does a better range than the better-known Dr Duncan’s, which tends only to stock Cain’s beers.

The last port of call was, as usual, the Globe opposite Central Station, Steve’s favourite pub in Liverpool, and it’s not hard to see why. I had Saltaire Stein Gold, a 4.3% golden beer. With the name Stein, I assumed it was a cask lager, but not so, although it does use continental hops. A good beer to finish on and rush for the final train. I noticed the Globe still has a cask cider as well as 4 cask beers, so I assume that it’s now a permanent fixture.

All in all, a nice mini-tour of some great Liverpool pubs. I think the Harviestoun was for me the beer of the day.

Liverpool wanderings

I was in Liverpool yesterday to have a drink with Steve in the the Baltic Fleet, a brew pub in Wapping. I had Baltic Classic, pleasant enough, but I preferred the Baltic Gold and the Summer Ale that I'd had in the same pub on Sunday. The Baltic Fleet has a special offer that if you buy 3 pints of cask beer under 4.5% in strength, you pay for two and a half, which works out at £6.25 for 3 pints. The pub was full of TUC delegates from the conference centre across the road. Another friend, also called Steve, gave me a bag of freebies that he had picked up at the congress. So I now have a history of the Prison Officers' Association and a POA mug, a CWU bag and a stress buster shaped like a post box and pens from various unions.

We left for the Cains Brewery Tap and had the new Cains beer, Liverbird, followed by one called Voyager. I don't know whether my taste buds were still recovering from the Southport beer festival or not, but these both tasted similar and unremarkable to me, and not worth the £2.66 price. Disappointing, as Cains have brewed some beer I do like. The Liverbird was supposed to have a citrus flavour, but I couldn't detect it.

We moved to the Grapes at the corner of Knight Street and Roscoe Street. I wrote about this pub in June and it was much the same. Everards Tiger, Deuchars IPA and London Pride were on. Not a startling line-up, but excellent for a back street pub rescued by the current licensees from closure. They play good music there as well ~ not the usual piped musical fare. We had the Tiger, which was in good condition and tasted much as you'd expect.

With time pressing on, we had a quick last pint in the Dispensary on Renshaw Street before rushing for our last train and bus. Not the best night in beer terms I've had in Liverpool, but as I said, my taste buds may still be scorched from the weekend.

P.S. I've just noticed this is my 100th posting, and I began this blog exactly 6 months ago to the day ~ what a coincidence! Not quite as many postings as Tandleman, but still an average of more than one posting every two days. And I wondered when I began it whether I could keep it going for a month...