Ye Hole in Ye Wall, Liverpool

Ye Hole in Ye Wall is purported to be Liverpool’s oldest public house and to be honest I saw nothing inside the dimly lit interior to suggest otherwise. The serving counter runs along the front wall to the right of the entrance where standard and premium keg are supported alongside six hand pumps that were drawing Black Sheep’s Best and Respire, Liverpool Brewing’s Fresh Start and Lancaster Brewery’s Lancaster Amber and Lancaster Black. Opposite the entrance is a nice brown banqueted snug with patterned lead lined windows and wood panelled walls, this is décor that runs throughout the pub. The serving counter faces a beer shelf that runs across a lead lined window topped partition that separates the bar area from a second, but larger, banquette seating area that runs across the rear wall. On the right-hand wall is an impressive fireplace with a large copper hood. The service was polite and I enjoyed my Monday evening visit, but it would have been even better if the likes of Cold Play weren’t being played at quite a high volume through the speaker system.

A lovely old side street pub with six handpumps in all with three beers on offer during my visit, Parkway Blood & Fire, Hawkshead Gold and Lancaster Lancaster Black.

Lively atmosphere the time of my Monday afternoon visit - a sentence I cannot recall using before. It's a lovely pub with some fantastic features, but the customers were all drinking lager and Guinness, as far as I could see. My half of Lancaster Mosaic was in good condition but with a hint that the pipes are not cleaned as often as necessary. Drinkable, but with pleasure slightly alloyed with regret.

Tucked away up a side street next to Thomas Rigby's, I always find this a bit of a strange pub. It's quite dark and dingy inside, but with several cosy areas in which to hole up in. There's generally some interesting people in and often some impromptu musical performances, as it proved again on our late Tuesday afternoon visit, when we found guitar and harmonica players. The barmaid/landlady was a good laugh and as usual, there were some interesting ales to choose from. Although only the one set of 3 handpulls were in use, the other 3 all unclipped. Beers on offer were Hawkshead Bitter, Big Hand Bastion & Wigan Brewhouse Alcatraz.

Only open Thursday - Sunday at the moment.