No. 45 The Cellar Bar

Visited on 5/5/11. Picking a slalom course through the revellers, we left the Hangman and crossed the road to the newly refurbished Cellar bar (formerly the City bar and even more formerly the Cestrian). The design of the place is still pretty much as it was under the previous regime, with an open-fronted bar at street level and a second bar downstairs – although it was roped off on this occasion. The key difference between then and now is the ale. Real ale is now very much at the forefront, whereas previously there was only a token presence. 3 handpumps are on the bar and with no tied house or tenancy restrictions, the owners can focus on quality local brews. And what a choice they had lined up. Trapper’s Hat from the Wirral’s Brimstage brewery is a quite sublime offering packed with flavour. At only 3.8% abv, it’s a low octane session beer but gives you more hops than Phillips Idowu. Lovely. The other two ales (Brimstage Scarecrow and Facers DHB) didn’t quite reach these heady heights, but were more than quaffable. Again we were provided with some excellent entertainment in the form of the highly efficient but nevertheless comedic ejection of a few pissed-up oiks by the world-weary bouncers – and all this to a live soundtrack performed by top song and dance man Chris Fletcher with his dulcet tones and gentle guitar. Fab. Could have stayed all night, but of course we were on a mission…