January 2026. Liverpool.
I thought I’d have a night in Liverpool before Peter the Pub Curmudgeon’s funeral 2 stops away in Widnes on Friday.
Normally one hour thirty-six to get to the edge of the Pool, say Google Maps. But this was far from a normal rail journey, as I first had to push the emergency button after a medical emergency near Stockport, and then find a lorry smashing into the bridge at Mossley Hill station, my first target.
So, after 150 minutes, I bailed at Liverpool South Parkway,
and walked the two (2) miles to the Black Cat along Long Lane.
A lack of Beer Guide entries in the suburbs have made these urban walks a rare treat. How I’ve missed passive aggressive notes on inconsiderately parked cars.
Paul McCartney’s childhood house is close by, the pubs and Lennon’s Strawberry Fields are over the A562 in Woolton.
In truth, Long Lane is a bit of a slog, the sort of wide middle class road you get in Sutton Coldfield or Bromley.
Here’s the highlight.
Google says I’d arrive at 2pm, exactly when the Black Cat opens. Reader, I was there at a quarter to.
Mossley Hill is all red brick and parks with running tracks and a stately home (Sudley) that I’m sure Lana would have visited for you. Instead you get a stately pub,
and my new Guide entrant bar.
I’m hesitating to use the word “micro” or “craft bar” these days, as places like the Black Cat (see : Wavertree) are very cosy neighbourhood pubs.
You can tell a ticker, even a retired one, a mile off. I stand at the door to the Black Cat at 1:59:48, rucksack filled with Stabilo pens, looking wistfully at the young lad rearranging chairs.
If I cared about beer, I’d tell you this was a great beer board, similar in feel to that Nan Moors last month,
The Colbier has the word “remixed” in the title, so you have to try that, no ?
It’s near perfect, chewy and murky (NBSS 4.5),
rather like the soundtrack.
I take a collector card, even though I may never return, and wonder if I should have scored it a 5, so I let Liverpool CAMRA know I would have scored a 5 but that might have marked me down as an extremist.
This really is a corker of bar, the music as good as anywhere, though Electrelane (Press PLAY) may well evince a familiar sense of “what’s this weird stuff NOW ?” amongst my readers.
retiredmartin 