Time to donate blood again, so in between some non beer related visits I did a couple of pubs, starting with the wonderful Ship & Mitre on Dale Street. There isn't really much to say about this place, it just carries on supplying a superb range of real ales and imported beers, as always - Long may they continue. By the way, the casks for the next beer festival were on stillage, so a visit on 12th to 15th January would be even more worthwhile than usual. Not so far mentioned anywhere in my pub guide is their new bottled beer shop on Whitechapel, called the Ship in a Bottle, which opened in December.
My next port of call was a complete contrast. There's no real ale at all in the Liverpool on James Street, and it was pretty quiet on a wet Tuesday afternoon in January, as you might expect. Not much change to this friendly cheerful boozer since my last visit, in 2004 - Pleasantly decorated, with lots of pictures of the various HMS Liverpools on the walls.
