A group of pubs situated in and around the Dale Street area of town have recently grouped together as Liverpool Beer Quarter, which you may have seen on Twitter (and I dare say Facebook) with their cheerful looking logo. We are living through interesting and difficult times and forming a collective to market these pubs perhaps more widely can not be a negative. It will be interesting to see where it goes in the future, but this weekend they have had their first 'festival.'The pubs have done various things within the weekend including Meet the Brewer events and discounts beer.

I caught some music in the Angus and the Cross Keys on Saturday, but my main objective this weekend was to visit the ten pubs to fill a card (which has gone into a draw for some prizes). Needless to say I visited the ten (over two days).

Of the pubs in the Quarter there are two or three I don't go to often – in particular Shenanigans (which doesn't do cask ale), the Cross Keys (a bit out on limb in office-central) and the Saddle (which doesn't really do cask ale (Doom Bar)). I do like Shenanigans though. Vibrant, an attractive building and some good music too – you can always get a good Guinness there or you maybe lucky with a keg or bottle.



First up was the Ship & Mitre where I took the opportunity to get some loaded fries with cheesy garlic bread. Hey, it's tasty, good stomach lining and wards away vampires. Next was the short hop to the Excelsior. I was given the Beer Quarter card there and my first stamp. I'd missed the card (and hence stamp) in the Ship. Not the end of the world as it was an excuse to revisit there – and it is most accessible. I wasn't aware of the card before I received it, but once I had then it was Challenge Accepted!


Pub 2 (the Excelsior) or Pub 1 according to the new card.


Shropshire Gold in the Excelsior.


Two down, eight to go.


The Lion Tavern

Next up was the Vernon a little further up Dale Street. I bumped into a Twitter buddy there (Bill) who was doing a walk around the same pubs in the opposite direction to me. Then it was on to a regular haunt of mine – the Angus, where there was a singer on strumming his stuff whilst hiding behind some plants. Following the Angus it was the first veer off Dale Street to get to the beautiful and ever popular Lion on Moorfields before heading out to the most isolated of the pubs –the Cross Keys. Again there was a good musician on there.


The Angus (there's a musician there somewhere).


The four ales on in the Angus.


Having a moral panic in the Denbigh Castle.

The last two stops of this group of pubs was the excellent Denbigh Castle (the sister but to the Bridewell) and then finally the Saddle.


Anyone seen the Cross Keys? It's somewhere around here.

It was good to see that there seemed to be a good coordinated social media management of the weekend with the hashtag #beerquarterliverpool (not sure why it wasn't Liverpool Beer Quarter like on the logo). I guess you should keep an eye on the hashtag to see how things progress with the Dale Street collective.


Back at the Ship. I've done the ten.


A nice building – and helped by a bright blue sky.

On Saturday I popped into the two/three pubs I hadn't done on Friday and got my card fully filled up with a schooner of Double Barrelled 'Parka' in a most packed Dead Crafty and a keg beer in an equally busy Shenanigans. Lastly it was the Ship again to get the missing stamp before walking across town to the Arts Club to catch the wonderful 'The Heavy North.'

It was a nice walk around the ten pubs. Good luck to all of them in these difficult times. Hope the collective creates a little bit of magic for them. Why not go and have a walk around them too?
I went to the ten pubs of the Beer Quarter in the order as follows:

• Ship & Mitre
• Excelsior
• Vernon
• Angus
• Lion
• Cross Keys
• Denbigh Castle
• Saddle
• Dead Crafty
• Shenanigans
• and Ship & Mitre again…