Pen Factory, Liverpool

Visited on a Friday back in May. The entrance immediately guides you down some steps into a basement level lobby area; from here you can access the main bar, toilets or beer garden. Into the main bar, six hand pulls await you, at the time of my visit offering five ales and one was clipped for cider, though this was just for advertising as the cider is dispensed from room out the back so was presumably a 'bag in a box' job. Mainly bitters and pales on the cask ale front, with nothing too exciting on offer, which led me to go wild and choose the cider at £2.75 for a half. It was pretty empty around midday, although there is a beer garden which may have had a handful of people using it. It looked to be a nice little sun trap. Wi-Fi is advertised. Food is served, and the smell from the semi open kitchen was pleasant. Seating is mainly leather chairs at low tables, with some leather or leather effect bench seating. Long high banqueting style tables with high chairs were present in front of the bar. There is a semi industrial underground feel to the place. Quiz and open mic nights advertised. The hand dryers in the gents are very effective!

A subterranean bar, go down some steps then through a big iron door into a long basement with the counter on the left almost the full length of the room. This houses six pulls with beers from Kirkstall, Three Acre, Higsons and an Ossett/Amity co-lab, as well as two T-bars with mainly German and UK craft kegs. There’s also a double Guinness fount and a double Erdinger, plus one called Myrrah which I’m unfamiliar with. Iron I girders hold up a girdered ceiling which also has some big air-con pipes. Mostly furnished with long tables with chairs, there’s a couple of long taller tables with stools down the centre. A food servery is at the far end beside more tables with menus and cutlery, most tables were reserved for two “do’s” later in the day. To the right is a pleasant garden.

The Pen Factory was completely empty during a bank holiday Monday evening visit, which I think also surprised the barman because he asked me if everywhere else was quiet, I lied and said yes. Although this place is usually closed on Sundays and Mondays so maybe they didn’t put the word out enough that they’d be open. Anyway, the rectangular interior is open plan with brown banquettes and chairs along its length with fairy lights wrapped around the exposed HVAC overhead. There’s an open kitchen in the right-hand wall, unfortunately due to it being so empty the fat from the kitchen hit the nostrils. The counter across the right-hand side of the rear wall supports premium keg and six hand pumps that were drawing Kirkstall’s Bitter, Arbor Ales’ Mosaic and Shangri-La, Ossett’s Jet, Rooster Brewing’s Birds of a Feather and Lilley’s Cherries. One interesting feature was a log burner behind some glass in the wall that had the look of a furnace from a distance. It’s hard to judge somewhere when it’s completely empty, but the decent ale choice and friendly service gave me good vibes, so I’d pop back in if passing for a second look.