The Bridewell, 1 Campbell Square, Liverpool, Merseyside
Dead Crafty Beer Company, 92 Dale Street, Liverpool, Merseyside
The Crown Hotel, 43 Lime Street, Liverpool, Merseyside
As of April of this year, I’d only ever been to Liverpool briefly. That was years ago, when my Beatlemaniac friend Barb was visiting us in Sheffield and we spent a day searching (sometimes in vain) for Fab Four memorabilia, the highlight of which was the statue of John Lennon at the airport. There were a couple of times when Andrew and I took the ferry from Berkenhead to Northern Ireland, but those trips only offered me a view of Liverpool from across the Mersey. So I hadn’t actually experienced Liverpool itself. Earlier this year in April I learned that a second cousin of mine was over from the States doing an exchange term at Liverpool University. So I jumped at the chance of coming to the city to see him.
Located next to the Irish Sea, Liverpool is the fifth largest city in the United Kingdom. The name supposedly derives from lifer pol, which is Old English for “muddy pool”, although some Welsh people will debate that. At the very beginning of the 18th century the port was heavily involved in the Atlantic slave trade, and as a result it was home to the earliest black community in the UK, as well as the earliest Chinese community in Europe and the first mosque in England. It was also a major importer of cotton for the Lancashire textile mills, as well as being a major departure point for English and Irish people who were emigrating to America. In more recent times, it was the home of Merseybeat in the 1960s, which introduced the Beatles and other bands to the world, and it was elected European Capital of Culture for 2008. It hosts two Premier League football teams, Liverpool and Everton.
Needless to say, Liverpool has a long history, including many firsts: the first intercity railway; the world's first integrated sewer system, the UK's first Underwriters' Association, the first Institute of Accountants, the world's first financial derivatives to be traded; the world's first iron-framed, curtain-walled office building which was a prototype of the skyscraper; the UK’s first purpose-built department store, the first lending library, the first athenaeum society, the first arts centre, the UK's oldest surviving symphony orchestra, and the UK’s oldest repertory theatre. And there’s one more world first: it’s home to the oldest still operating mainline train station, Liverpool Lime Street, which is where I arrived to meet up with Jack.
I had met Jack and his twin brother Mitch the year before lockdown, back when they were 14 years old and were travelling around Europe with my cousin Jennifer and her husband Nick. I had taken the train down to London to spend the afternoon with them all, and I remember Jack being really friendly, which he still was when he met me at the station. As he was now 19 and old enough to go to pubs, we naturally decided to check out a couple of interesting ones, starting with the Bridewell.
The Bridewell is a Grade ll listed prison that has been converted into a pub, with all In 2019 it was taken over by licencees Fiona and Dominic, and the drink range includes cask, craft, and continental beers. the original heavy prison doors and hatches, and the cells now feature seating. The name “bridewell” refers to a prison or reform school for petty offenders, so I suppose it’s an appropriate place for those of us who are shirking work or school in the middle of the day in order to have a pint or two of demon beer.
Located close to the Albert Dock and the riverfront, the Bridewell, which was built in the 1840s at a cost of £2675, features an outdoor beer garden out front. It was named for the term for a police lock-up and it still has the seven cells that housed over 100 “guests” each month, sleeping on the floor and eating bread. If these guests wanted a bed or better food, they would have to pay for it. The writer Charles Dickens spent a night here in 1860 as a special constable while he was researching his novel The Uncommercial Traveller. A nightly bucket of Guinness Stout was supplied to the patrol from the brewery’s boats that were tied up at the nearby Salthouse Docks. The building eventually became derelict until the 1980s, when it started to be used as a rehearsal space for many local Liverpool bands. It was purchased in early 2000 by a TV producer and turned into a bar and restaurant, and now it’s a pub offering a range of cask ales and craft beers.
Jack and I both ordered pints of one of the cask ales, Tweed Dry Hopped Pale Ale (4.0% ABV, Salt Beer Factory, Shipton, West Yorkshire), which was quite nice and perfectly acceptable as a lunchtime pint. We took our pints with us to sit in one of the former cells, which all looked oddly inviting. As we sat enjoying our incarceration, I caught up with my second cousin, who is currently studying criminology but thinking about switching majors to film production. So what a perfect place to take him.
After our pint we had lunch at a nearby ramen bar, Maggie Fu. And then we took a walk out onto the Albert Dock, where Jack showed me the giant statue of the four Beatles. Always on the lookout for interesting photos, I handed my phone to Jack and insisted on him taking a few photos of me. I think I embarrassed him a bit; but I told him I’m a good photographer and it was in the interest of art, not tourism.
I was hoping to see a bit of Tate Liverpool, but sadly it was closed for the installation of a new show. So we headed back to find a micropub I’d been looking forward to visiting, the Dead Crafty. As soon as we walked into the micropub, the barman handed us a printed menu of the beers and apologised for their card machine having just gone down, so they could only take cash at the minute. I had only a £5 note on me, and I didn’t want Jack, a young student who was already diving into debt, to pay for anything this afternoon. So we took a quick walk down to the nearby Tesco ATM to get cash and then returned.
As we were pacing ourselves, I decided to have a half of Lemon Yellow Sun (5.0% ABV, Pomona Island Brewing Company, Salford, West Yorkshire), and this pale hazy ale, brewed in collaboration with Dead Crafty, was really quite excellent. Jack went for a completely different kind of half: Alchemik Cake Factor Strawberry and Banana Cheesecake Sour Smoothie (Alchemik, Sofia, Bulgaria). Described as starting with a thick, biscuity graham crust base topped with tangy vanilla cream cheese, this is surprisingly really good, not too sweet at all, and pleasantly sour. Wow. The Dead Crafty glasses were graphic art pieces as well, and our two differently coloured beers both looked great in them.
We were very tempted to have another half here, potentially two more completely different choices. But we decided to move on to find another brewpub I’d read about. Sadly it appeared to not exist anymore; so we wandered aimlessly through the Cavern Quarter and past lots of loud Irish-themed bars, stopping to admire the statue of Cilla Black outside the legendary Cavern Club. We finally decided to check out the Crown Hotel, simply because it looked very historic and ornate on the outside.
The Crown is another Grade II listed building that was built in 1905 in the Art Nouveau style and consists of three floors. The place was lightly sprinkled with older customers, but I felt as out of place there as Jack did. The beer choice wasn’t that interesting, either. After I had a taste of one that had obviously gone off, I went for a half of the only other choice for me, Jarl (3.8% ABV, Fyne Ales Farm Brewery, Cairndow, Argylle, Scotland), which was a Citra session blonde. Depleted of any sort of expectations, Jack went for the same thing. We took our pints and sat at a tall table in the middle of the main room and proceeded to talk about Monterey and Pacific Grove, where Jack lives when he’s at home with his parents. I felt as if we were both dreaming of perhaps being somewhere else right at that moment, at least in a more exciting pub and drinking a more exciting beer.
These days the Crown is basically a sports pub with cheap meals, so the emphasis doesn’t really seem to be on the beer. As we were halfway through our halfs, a drunk Scouser came up to us and proceeded to have the nerve to talk to us, telling us all sorts of supposedly amusing stories and witticisms--but I couldn’t understand half of what he said, and poor newbie Jack couldn’t understand anything at all. I made a little comment to Jack that I needed to get to the station or I’d miss my train (I still had well over an hour), and Jack nodded, downed his half, and we both headed for the door. Not quite our environment. Oh well, it was a Monday, when many of the interesting pubs are closed, so I’ll keep that in mind for my next visit.
Related Links
- All about the Royal Albert Dock
- Just in case you want to take a ferry from Liverpool to Belfast, here's some useful information (Stena Lines)
- A history of the Atlantic slave trade (Royal Museums Greenwich)
- All about James Newlands, who designed Liverpool's sewer system and was the first to hold the position of the municipal engineer
- For Beatles fans and just fans of music, here's an article on the inside story of the 1960s Merseybeat pop explosion (The Guardian)
- All about the Beatles statue at the Royal Albert Dock (Visit Liverpool)
- A guide to the Cavern Quarter (Confidential Guides)