Baltic Fleet, Liverpool

The Baltic Fleet is a wedge-shaped pub with pink painted chimneys that, if you squint your eyes after a few strong jars, kind of make the building look like a ship. There are picnic tables behind a rope outside the point and across the rear are some covered picnic tables enclosed behind a five-foot high Perspex screen meaning that access is only available from inside the pub. The entrance from the right opens into a thin bar area where a central serving counter faces the front windows, it doesn’t take too many in here to make it feel cosy. In the pointed left-hand side of the pub is sunken seating area and across the rear is more seating and access to the Perspex enclosed rear seating area. There is a flight of stairs, but I didn’t venture up on this occasion. Premium and craft keg products were available and the four hand pumps I spotted were drawing Brimstage’s Trappers Hat, Peerless Brewing’s Skyline, Lune brew Co’s Caked and Black Lodge Brewery’s Gift of Paradise, the latter being on good form, but it took a while to pour so there was a bit of a production line going on. The back bar is plastered with old pump clips so there’s a good turnover of ale. The service was polite, but I was a little disappointed with my visit, I suppose I was expecting a proper old school boozer, which this isn’t. That said it is a good pub with a decent line up so I’d revisit if passing, but not sure it warrants the hike from the city centre.

This has changed a bit since I was last here, but the beer selection is very good and there were plenty of customers. The Farmyard Brew Hoof coffee milk stout was very good.