Thomas Rigby's, Liverpool

This is a nice multiple room pub on Dale Street, which was taken over by the Okell’s Brewery in 2003. The main bar has the servery running down the right hand side of a bare boarded room filled with scrubbed tables and bench and standard chair seating. The walls, which are half panelled and half exposed brickwork, have shelves full of old books and clocks and a couple of TV screens mounted on them. Framed jockey silks are on display in the raised seating area to the rear which also has some nice stained glass features, and the servery has a foreign bank note collection and a lot of football scarves on show. The pub’s best asset is probably the nice courtyard it shares with another Okell’s pub, the Lady of Mann, which has plenty of seating and can be a bit of a suntrap. There was a good range of beers available including Okell’s Bitter and IPA, Salopian Oracle, Cains Raisin Beer, Lees John Willies, Moorhouse Black Cat and Bakehouse Cupcake, plus Thatcher’s Cheddar Valley Cider. An interesting keg and bottle range was detailed on a board with sliders which are positioned to show whether that beer is ‘In’ or ‘Out’. I tried a pint of the Oracle which was in good shape and as tasty as ever. I thought this was a solid, if unspectacular place and would certainly include it on future crawls thanks to the good selection of beer on offer, but it wasn’t the most memorable pub of the day.