Ye Cracke, Liverpool

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Blue Scrumpy left this review about Ye Cracke

This is a really difficult pub to review. It's location along a short narrow passageway looks unpromising and the old Bass sign outside indicates a throwback to past glories.

Up a few steep steps into the pub, you arrive into a small bar area which I've always found to be either completely empty or packed. It has a number of handpulls, but they rarely seem to be clipped.

Beyond this is a lovely small snug, which is also empty most of the time. Heading left towards the main bar, there is a small seating area which can also be unused due to the stench coming from the toilets. As such, most people seem to head to the far left-hand end of the pub, where a larger more open-plan room is popular.

3 real ales were on in the main bar for our midweek visit. These were Empire Hoppy Christmas To You & Pandemonium Porter & Spitting Feathers Winter Solstice. We ordered the Porter and I think I ended up with the last of the cask. However, the beer itself was still really enjoyable. By the time we left, this had been replaced with Beartown Smore, another dark beer. However, they seem to have stopped stocking a real cider since my last visit.

On the face of it, this is a great pub, a little off the beaten track. However, I've also experienced some of my most frustrating pubgoing experiences in this place. I've never forgiven the landlady for one visit when I waited 10-15 minutes to get served in what was a busy pub, but one where locals were clearly getting served ahead of me and after waiting only a few minutes. Eventually I threw the toys out of the pram and enquired as to whether I was invisible. I was invited to leave the pub if I didn't like it! For a while, I vowed never to go back. But over the years I've weakened and returned to what was once my favourite Liverpool pub.

Another frustration is the incorrect opening times on their Facebook page, on Google and also on WhatPub. They all state that they stay open until 11:30 during the week. I have walked in before this and tried to get served numerous times even just a few minutes past 11, only to be told they were closed. Strange that, when a large group of locals is stood around the front bar with full pints!

Visiting here can be an enjoyable experience at times. But the pub is best avoided when busy or anytime late at night. During both periods, non-locals are not welcome and will invariably be treated with disdain. I still really want to like this pub, but you never quite know what treatment you will get when you step through the door.

On 21^st December 2023 - rating: 6
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