retiredmartin

July 2026. Liverpool.

Since we got back from all that foreign muck in Armenia you’ve had a string of classic UK pubs. The Harp, the Cock, the Rutland, the New Barrack, the KIT, the Tunbridge Wells Spoons….

And a trip to Liverpool on Thursday to see long-term RM favourite Julia Jacklin preview her upcoming 4th album at the old Cains brewery promised a Scouse cracker or two.

I’ve not had much luck with Julia’s gigs of late, and sadly news of cancellation due to illness as we pulled into Lime Street. Time for a different burst of culture.

On every trip to the ‘Pool I look at the string of museums and galleries beyong St Georges Hall, as grand as the Three Graces,

and wonder why I haven’t been to the Walker or the World in a decade.

Everyone goes to the Tate or the Beatles museum or does the craft beer tour, so the Walker Art Gallery gets a bit overlooked these days.

A dozen or more rooms of the classics, including one Ian McCulloch borrowed for the Bunnymen,

and a good supply of modern stuff,

and some really obscure stuff.

An hour of art is about right for me, and I left the World Museum for next time to get a late lunch across the road.

Ask me to name any five pubs in Liverpool* and it would probably go “Lion, Roscoe Head, Baltic Fleet, Philharmonic, Ship & Mitre“, the S & M the Beer Guide perennial you bump into on the way down to the Mersey.

A large rambling pub with lots of places to hide, or read, and scoff. It’s 2pm on Thursday, often quiet even in the big cities, but here it’s buzzing,

and there’s a lot of trade for the in-pub kitchen.

Someone’s going to say they remember when a plate of Scouse was a fiver, but in a world of £19.50 fish and chips this was a bargain plate tender of meat, potatoes and red cabbage.

I was surprised how good the beer was, Small World’s Thunderbridge Stout a chewy 4.5, sunk in the time the Spanish couple opposite shared a half of Malaga.

“A 4.5 ? Half marks have been outlawed by the CAMRAs“.

You’re right, and I scored it Excellent, even though giving top marks risks the Spanish inquisition.

*_{Not necessarily my favourite five, just the one that come to mind}