New pub where people start chatting with strangers and then become mates

Stephen Povey had never run or even worked in a bar, but after a career change he knew he had to give it a go. The 43-year-old from Moreton worked in the chemical industry for nearly two decades but he left his role during the pandemic and started a new job.

However, he swiftly decided he needed a complete restart and to try something new. Fed up with the idea of starting again in the corporate world, he took a plunge.

In October 2021, he took over a unit in Little Sutton to convert it into a micropub serving German, craft and cask beer called The Crafty Tavern. When that became a success, he secured a second venue - this time in Irby.

Irby's Crafty Tavern opened in April, following the same formula as the Little Sutton site. Stephen believes he is bringing something new to the Wirral village and hopes it can become a thriving venue as a result.

As he prepared to open his Irby bar for the afternoon on Thursday, he told the ECHO: "I used to work in a chemical company up in Bromborough. I was there for 17 years and I got made redundant due to covid and all that.

"I got a pay out from that, went to work somewhere else but decided I couldn't go back to starting again, I had a passion for craft beer for years and the place came up in Little Sutton from a friend of mine. He couldn't keep it going as a store and I was looking for somewhere, so he asked me if I wanted to take it over.

"I thought I'd try it, but I worried that I didn't know how to run a business or run a bar. I'd never even worked in a bar before, but I thought I'd try it. I took over that place in October 2021 and it's so good there now.

"It's really busy, we've got a good group of regulars there, Little Sutton is thriving as a village itself now. It's getting more and more businesses around the area, we've got a new estate of 5,000 houses getting built, so it's just getting bigger now. It seems to be the place to be around Ellesmere Port now.

"I was then looking for other places and this place came up. This unit was a French restaurant - Le Mont Blanc."

Though Irby is a small village, it has its fair share of pubs - most of them large, traditional venues. There's the Irby Mill on the outskirts and inside the village itself you'll find the Anchor Inn and The Shippons Pub & Kitchen. Though he likes those pubs, Stephen hopes the Crafty Tavern can provide a different approach.

He explained: "There are pubs in Irby but they are both restauranty-pubs, not really somewhere where you can sit and have a pint. We don't do any food and we just serve drinks.

"We want people to come here, where we can act as a community, you can just have a drink. If you don't want to go and have food or don't want to sit in a place like that, you can just come here and have a drink on its own. I thought we'd do something different for the village."

Part of that will be achieved through its beer offering. German beer regalia adorns the pub's walls, as do signs from small, independent craft breweries.

"Our German lager is Ayinger, which is our main lager", said Stephen. "It's a very good lager, brewed in Germany.

"We also have Erdinger on, which is a popular one for everyone. There's also Fruli strawberry beer - it's Belgian and can be hard to get hold of in most places.

"It's a good selling point. It's a sweet one, but popular with people who like the ciders.

"We have Lightbulb on from Cornwall, I know it's not local but we have it on because it's such a good beer. We have O'Hara's Irish stout, which I personally prefer to Guinness - some people don't.

"We have our cask pumps as well, we've got two at the moment but we can go up to three. We always have Brimstage's Trapper's Hat on all the time. They're just two miles down the road from us and we sell a lot of that. I think the regulars we have now would kill me if I took it off.

"That's a regular mainstay and we've got one from Carnival on at the minute - we try to keep it local if we can but we probably go as far as Yorkshire - there are some great cask beers up that way. We do a lot of Northern beers.

"We've got a fridge with about 60 cans in, which can be drunk here or taken away. We don't charge corkage either."

Stephen hopes the Irby pub will be able to emulate the friendly, community-driven atmosphere he has developed in his Little Sutton place. He said: "If you go to the Little Sutton one on a Tuesday night now, 90% of the people in there are regulars and they all know me. We've got two lads working here now who are local, they're from Irby, they've got a good rapport with the locals now.

"People say to me all the time that it's nice to have a pint here. They're sitting here, they ask the people on the next table 'what pint have you got there?' and you start talking.

"We've got people who became friends from the place in Little Sutton, they might go for a pint somewhere else now, they'll go there and come down to my place for a pint afterwards. They became friends from meeting in our place and I don't think you would get that from meeting in a massive pub where people are sitting in different corners.

"We see that we're starting to get the same people in day and night. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday seem to be our busiest time in here at the moment, which I find very strange but it's good. Weekends need to be better, but I think that will take off in winter time."

The Crafty Tavern's venues are found at 335a Chester Rd, Little Sutton, Ellesmere Port, CH66 3RF & 5-7 Mill Hill Rd, Irby, CH61 4UB.