The Excelsior, Liverpool

This is a traditional pub that seems to be popular with students. Six hand pumps are split across sections of the bar counter in two rooms, with Landlord and a stout from Ossett in the front, and a hazy pale (not advertised as such) from Big Bog called Hinkypunk, featuring a pump clip in fuchsia, in the back room. (There's another room further back than this.) My half of the pink one was ok, but really nothing special (NBSS 2.5, £4.70/pint). This is a pleasant pub, with plenty of light through the windows on two sides, even in January. Memo to self: avoid Big Bog.

The Excelsior has a U-shaped serving counter that faces seating along the etched front and left-hand windows as well as seating across the rear wall that separates the bar area from a strip of split level seating in the rear. The older people in attendance were in the bar area with some background music and muted Sky Sports tennis on the screens, but the rear area was busier with a younger crowd who were doing a quiz. The mix of parquet, bare board and tiling in sections on the floor led me to believe that this pub was knocked through at some point to create the large high ceilinged bar area that now exists. The counter supports six hand pumps that were drawing Weetwood’s Cheshire Cat, Brian’s Rev James, Doom Bar and Kirkstall’s Black Band. Premium and craft keg options were also available alongside Carling. The service was polite and there was a decent crowd for a Monday evening so I’d pop back in again if passing.

A good traditional pub ably described by Ian below, the beer range, Ossett Blonde and Silver King, Kirkstall Three Swords, Rock The Boat Fab Four and T.T Landlord, although decent are not quite as interesting as the choice in its nearby neighbour The Ship & Mitre but is certainly worth calling in for a pint.

This is a smart, two bar pub on Dale Street with a pleasant traditional interior. The pub is bare boarded throughout with some very nice, low lincrusta wall coverings matched with a mix of plain wood panels, nice painted sections and some nautical themed wallpaper. Modern windows along two sides of the building have an etched glass-style pattern and have been fitted with heavy drapes. The rooms pop with colour thanks to attractive stained glass partitioning screens that break up the seating areas, a cool gold frieze beneath the lincrusta ceiling, and a few nice mosaic tile sections of floor here and there. Seating comes in the form of pews and chairs plus some button backed banquettes and low stools around the perimeter. The bar has a tidy, if somewhat boxy, dark wood counter which fronts a pleasant traditional bar back. The two main rooms are roughly equal in size and don’t seem to have anything that especially distinguishes one from the other, whilst a side room in a split-level space to the rear offers lots of additional seating. TV screens were showing muted coverage of a golf tournament whilst a plodding soundtrack failed to make itself heard over the modest hubbub created by a small Friday night crowd. There were four ales available when we called in - Ossett Butterfly, Thwaites Wainwright and Taylors Landlord and Boltmaker. I ordered a pint of the Butterfly from the super-friendly barman, which was in reasonable shape but probably not as good as the Boltmaker, which I would’ve ordered had I not initially mistaken it for a double-clipped Landlord. This is a decent enough pub that has a pretty good interior and a few solid ale options, but its location on the excellent Dale Street means that it all feels pretty average when compared to its neighbours. Some top service and comfy seating made for a pleasant visit, but it was notably quieter than a lot of other nearby pubs and would need to up its game to compete with the high standards set in this part of the city.