February 2024. Liverpool.
An early night on Merseyside last Sunday, as I drew a blank in finding live music, barring the Beatles covers on Mathew Street.
Carl Jung (NOT a Top 50 Chinese takeaway) called the city the Pool of Life, and I get that.
We’d had quite enough life, thank you, and I just wanted a Tesco meal deal back at our Travelodge by the docks. Mrs RM, as you’ll remember had dined at Gordon Ramsay’s gaff already.
It was she who now darted in the King John, the source of some high quality mop top inspired wailing,
but found all the tables taken,
and headed straight out via the Fab Four.
Only NOW do I notice on What Pub the King John (allegedly) offers Doom Bar and Plum Porter. I will have to go back. Mrs RM still has the graffiti trail to complete.
Now, there’s a few pubs I find that I have to go back to every time I walk past them, and one appeared now as I left Mrs RM to walk ahead at “her own pace”. Yes, it’s now safe to walk in Toxteth at night. #Progress.
Yes, the Baltic Fleet, by some way NOT my favourite Liverpudlian pub, and not a patch on it’s early 2000s zenith.
To be honest, I needed a comfort break, but I couldn’t nip in the loos without being conspicuous so had a half of Zapato’s 3.4% mild that was decent but lacking what beer writers call “chewiness”.
But the staff were lovely, the loos were clean, and no-one had nicked my (rather dull) meal deal salad left at at the back door.
So, the question is, which other pubs can I (or you) never walk past, ever ?
retiredmartin 
The headline’s quite right.
I always break into a girly skip, as I go past pubs which say “Sky Sports” as if it were a good thing.
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…whereas if it says “Dog Friendly”, and very conspicuously, then I do those sort of sideways scissor steps, like football linesmen do.
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The Parcel Yard. Or so I hear.
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You are the winner !
In Sheffield I always struggle to walk past the Crow (“just a half of that 10% Imperial Stout), in Leicester it would be the Ale Wagon, and I suspect I’ll always pop in the Ship in Deal however bad it is.
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Some for me would be City Arms, Lord Nelson Southwold, Free House, Black Horse, but this is starting to feel like a Top 100…
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Yes, I think it’s less about “best” pubs and more about ones you feel you have to because it’s tradition, or you need to see if anything’s changed. Coachmakers in Stoke is another, and odd ones like the Vine in West Brom.
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I’m too young to have traditions.
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Black Country Arms – Walsall..
Great beer, great snacks, characters and a unique view of Walsall from the upstairs window. (All of life goes in The Asda)
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I can see the draw, Neil.
I certainly went in a couple of times after I’d “ticked” it. Been a long while since I had a new pub in Walsall to draw me back though.
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