retiredmartin

Enough of all these posts on trad pubs with low ceilings and high spirits. Time for some more craft bars. Someone calm Dave down !

10 minutes along the Prom from the Magazine to a revitalised New Brighton.

The views across the Mersey are eerie.

A bit like Runcorn petrochemical plant at night, with a miniature pirate ship thrown in.

The Black Pearl (top and below) is the actual boat used by Liverpudlians to escape the infamous “Flood of craft” that engulfed the city in 2013.

Below you see the guard on lookout for pirated craft, and a delivery of Higsons to Stanley’s Cask.

New Brighton’s renaissance is centred around the developments at Marine Point. Sadly the Queens Royal and Lacy’s Bar haven’t survived.

In the best possible way, there’s a bit of Morecambe in New Brighton, though on the Wirral you get all-out craft keg. And daft names.

This felt like a continuation of the 20-something cocktail bars of Abergele, which is something I never thought I’d have to write.

The Bow-Legged Beagle had a few Old Boys at the bar to contrast with the (average age) 23 year olds on the high tables, and some unusual local beers, which obviously I disapprove of.

As Mark will know I always finish a county on a pint, unless they only have Old Tom on, in which case I have a pint.

Nice foamy Big Hand (NBSS 3+), cheery people, a creeping sense someone wanted my table.

And some frankly disturbing loos. But at least there were two of them.

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I should have phoned for my crispy beef there and then, but Duncan had alerted me to a promising sounding micro craft bar called Homebrew Tap.

Yes, bar calling it the “Twelve rotating tap and tasters” I can’t think how much more I could have been put off by the name.

But it was lively, had fantastic young staff, customers with an average age of 23.5, and served those beers called Hyghe and Verdant I like.

Actually the guy thought I was shouting for a pint of bourbon, rather than two-thirds of Verdant, over the tunes . Only BRAPA would be that dumb.

Paul Mudge will love it when New Brighton is added to the Old Codgers Proper Pubs schedule in 2022.

After that I popped in the Spoons, had 3 flat whites and eavesdropped on conversations for a bit. Oh, and knocked out a blogpost. I suspect it was tired and emotional.

Then, as you know, I finished the night singing “When A Child Is Born” in Stanley’s Cask and thought it might have been the best birthday ever, particularly when the Lucky Garden turned up trumps with Salt & Pepper Squid.