Tap & Bottles, Southport

once small but now not so small bar in a shopping precinct renowned for the best range of beer in Southport. Friendly service and generally down to earth clientele. Had a good pint of Hophurst Snuggle Mild on this visit. For this town it’s a beery godsend.

Walked past today and noticed four hand pulls at the bar, two appeared to be off. Looks a nice place and I look forward to giving it a try another time.

I'm not sure that this is really a micropub anymore as Al says below. It's quite a large room downstairs and there's another area upstairs along with the toilets. There's a pinball machine and a couple of old arcade games, one of which was getting a lot of use. Pretty busy on our Tuesday late afternoon visit. It's quite difficult to find, especially if you enter the arcade through the wrong entrance. 4 handpumps on the bar with an eclectic range of beers though and the 2 I tried were both in good nick. They also do a 20p per pint CAMRA discount. We'll definitely call in here again.

Tucked away inside a market building cum shopping mall it has one tiny room with a smaller one upstairs. L shaped on the ground floor, the counter has four pulls plus numerous "craft" kegs and bottles in abundance. The service was at bit slow but the place was rammed in spite of this and the default "Get Carter" glasses. Upstairs we found a seat under the pipework on old school (literally) tables and forms, we could have sat at a games table and enjoyed pacman and space invader type games as if it was 1982. I can see why it's popular and I'd try it again when it's less busy.

Specialist off-licence and micro-pub, with just a few tables and mostly the shelves of (admittedly very interesting) bottles to look at but enlivened during my brief visit by a popular local musician playing to an appreciative audience. Tap room (well, cupboard, really) beside the stairs leading up to the dingy upstairs room. Small counter at one end with four handpumps, with a sensible selection of different styles (including Barnsgate Cracker, £3.00). Well worth a visit.