The Dispensary, Liverpool

Popular drinkers pub in the 2011 Good Beer Guide with a great range of real ales. Chose Fernandes 99 Arches and Sadlers E Type Jag, both in good condition and enjoyable. Screens showing the footy results, but also a foreign screen presumably for wider choice.

Pleasant enough pub serving Cains and a couple of guests. We first called in on a Wednesday early evening and it was very quiet. Has some nice bits of panelling etc around the bar. Friendly guy behind the bar who let the other half try one of the guest ales to see if she liked it. We called back on a Saturday and it was busy, but not totally heabing like everywhere else round this part of town. It's a good pub.

Fairly small, architecturally unremarkable, split-level layout with some original features and a selection of pharmaceutical memorabilia about the walls (and the former name displayed above the bar). However, it has a good atmosphere and is obviously a proper beer-drinkers pub with a excellent range of Cains beers and local guest ales (e.g. a first-class pint of Brimstage Trapper's Hat Bitter at £2.65) and a cider from the eight handpumps. Rightly popular with the local CAMRA branch.