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Introduction Why?
It
all started on a Friday afternoon in June 1998.
The Friday Night Gang were discussing the forthcoming evening’s
activities. “We always do
the same thing”, someone complained,
“let’s go somewhere different”.
“There’s some nice pubs in West Derby Village” was the
reply. An enjoyable evening
out with some decent beer followed.
A couple of weeks later we decided to go somewhere different
again, and it was suggested that I ought to keep a record of where
we’d been. This idea
rapidly developed into the challenge of visiting and recording every pub
in Merseyside. What?
This is not a good beer
guide nor a good pub guide, although I hope it will help you to find
good beer and good pubs. The
objective is to catalogue every public house in the County of Merseyside,
along with a selection of night clubs, hotel bars and private clubs. How?
There is no team of
researchers involved in this guide - All the reviews are my own.
Many people have helped by contributing pub names and locations,
but only a personal visit results in a review in the list and no money
or free drinks have been accepted - I write what I see!
My comments are often based on one brief visit, and this should
be born in mind when reading them - I might have received the only duff
pint the pub has ever served! You
also need to remember that pubs change all the time, sometimes a
refurbishment and change of style, sometimes the quiz moves to a
different day of the week. Where changes are known I have noted them,
but there must be many of which I am not aware.
This is where you come in - Updates and corrections are always
welcome. (A special warning about places marked as closed - I have
noticed that pubs, especially the more down market ones, can spend
months closed only to suddenly re-open as though nothing has happened.) Acknowledgements
My
grateful thanks go to the friends who contributed lists of pubs, and to
those who accompanied me on many of the visits.
Special thanks to Joe for driving to some out of the way
locations. Thanks are also
due to the people who have contributed over the Internet. The
Full Pint I
am sorry to report that the number of pubs in which I have been served
with a full pint has been disappointingly low.
The current situation is just plain daft - How can a full pint of
beer with a head possibly fit in a brim measure glass?
The breweries are ripping us off because the law allows them to
and because most customers are too embarrassed or polite to ask for
their full pint. So, what
can we do about this? I
usually ask for a top up, but in truth this only causes hassle for the
poor bar staff, without getting the message across to the real villains
of the piece. The only
solution is legislation, and oversize lined glasses.
On the positive side, my (legally justified) requests for a top
up have almost invariably been accepted politely.
The very few exceptions have been recorded in this guide, and in
some cases reported to the appropriate authorities.
I have also tried to note the increasingly rare places where
oversize glasses are still used. To
those who think I am being excessively fussy about this, I say how would
you feel if the petrol station charged you for 20 litres but only gave
you 19, or if your brand new house had five per cent of the roof tiles
missing? The List So, down to details - How does the list work?
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