Ship & Mitre, Liverpool

Definitely one to revisit - at the end of a six Good Beer Guide Crawl - I had eaten one pub too soon. This had a far better menu than the Excelsior - with Scouse and the intriguingly named but giving little away "Beef Dinner". A great drinkers pub too - with a board of cask and a lot of German and Belgian bottles (which I spotted through the bar, from a different room). Ossett Silver King in great condition. Not sure I have found such a concentration of Good Beer Guide Pubs together than Dale Street.

Ship themed to the extent of being on board inside, but light and airy and great choice of beers

Still the archetypal city centre ale house and for me one of the best 2 pubs in Liverpool. As usual, it was packed on a football matchday. But our group did manage to find a small table. The pub's own brewery Flagship is usually represented in the ale range. Their Silhouette was on for my visit. Guests were Jennings Night Vision, Republic of Liverpool Dockers Ale, Carnival Carmen, Lister's Special Ale, Neptune Equinox, Team Toxix UN of Chinook & Ringwood Old Thumper. Real ciders were Abrahall's Ruby Tuesday & Weston's Old Rosie. The area at the front of the pub and to the left-hand side feels the most traditional, with darker areas to the rear and right-hand side of the central island bar feeling less appealing. Plenty of staff were on hand to keep the thirsty regulars' appetites sated, but they (the staff not the customers) never seem the friendliest. Nevertheless, you'll struggle to find a better ale range in Liverpool. So, the S & M is recommended.

Enjoyed our visit to this 2019 Good Beer Guide pub, and were able to get a beer from their own Flagship brewery, Silhouette. Also enjoyed Navigation New Dawn and Tyton Morepork. A great pub to wander round when not busy.

I had been in the Ship & Mitre in 2016 but it was the last pub before the dash for the train home so my memories of it were a little vague, other than it being quite busy and took a while to get served. So on a recent trip to Liverpool I decided it was worth another visit, this time at the start of the crawl, in order to refresh my memory. It looks grand and smart from the outside but is a little more "homely" and traditional on the inside. There are, if I remember rightly, 12 hand pulls including a couple of ciders, with four of these hidden round the back side of the bar and offering a different selection to those on the front. There were also a few keggy options that I didn't pay much attention to. It was fairly busy but we managed to find a couple of seats in the raised area towards the back of the pub. There was a sign up saying that the upstairs area was booked for a private function so everyone else was to stay downstairs; had it not been for the sign I don't think I would have noticed there was an upstairs area. A very good start to the crawl and, indeed, if not on a crawl you could easily spend some time in here working your way through the many different real ales.