January 2025. Liverpool.
One of my (few) guiding principles in life is that I will never stand still (literally) when there’s a walk to be done, and “Your food will be ready in 10 minutes” is an instruction, not invitation, to skip out of Big Bowl Noodle Bar to find a pub.
I’m not sure what the area between the bombed out church of St Luke’s and the Metropolitan Cathedral is called, but it’s very cute,
and my next closest GBG revisit after the Roscoe is a corker I’d completely forgotten about.
The Grapes is a quality Liverpool corner pub, proper seating,
warm and inclusive,
with a very modern beer range.
I know my limits, I only want a quick half, and point to a beer board on the wall that apparently bears no relation to the pumps on the bar.
So I point to the Ossett x Admundsen collaboration with a handwritten label and a bit of string; that’s always the safe bet, no ?
Well, generally no. But this is a rich, chewy stout (NBSS 3.5), albeit a bit too chocolatey for the fussy drinker, but that’s not me.
Be warned; the hand dryer isn’t REALLY voice activated.
retiredmartin 
Ah, “inclusive”.
I remember a pub in Sneinton, Nottingham, called the Bendigo, featuring a statue of the eponymous boxer over the door. It was inclusive of heavily built, aggressive men in drag, women – perhaps – of ill repute, scrap metal dealers, and I didn’t stay long enough to identify any others. I just, but only just, got out unscathed as an unmarked twenty-one-year-old, but to a barrage of jeers and lewd shouting.
Oh “inclusive” can be just the ticket…
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That Pubmaster sign is at least 22 years old.
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The Grapes was the pub where we learned Liverpool takes talking to strangers to a whole new level.
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It does indeed, Dave. It’s a bit like other West Coast cities eg Glasgow maybe?
I wonder why – with the exception of Newcastle – the East is so different?
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My experience puts Derbyshire and Liverpool as the most chatty. Almost talk you into submission. You can’t not chat. Quite fun.
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You probably have the best perspective on that.
One thing I’ll say, the Germans in rural north Bavaria were as keen to get me involved in the chat as anyone in the UK. I really love that Pottenheim area.
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