'Unique' Liverpool pub that's 'heaving' every afternoon

Tony O'Donnell at the bar of The Augustus John pub on Peach Street, Liverpool
-Credit: (Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)


It is 2pm on a Wednesday and the Augustus John pub is beginning to fill up. Several groups of people sit around tables, chatting, drinking beer and eating pizza, while others enjoy the surprising spell of October sunshine from its outdoor seats.

Tucked away in the corner of the pub, a group of young men are playing darts - enjoying the freedom of their afternoon. It is relaxed now but, by 4pm, the pub will be heaving, according to landlord Tony O'Donnell. Unlike many pubs though, by 8pm, it will have calmed down again.

Owned by the University of Liverpool and named after the famous Welsh painter who taught there, the pub has been located on Peach Street, within the university's campus in the city centre, since 1968. Externally, it is an unassuming building, in keeping with the university's 1960s expansion.

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But inside it is an attractive pub with plenty of snugs, stylish furniture, stained glass and various beer mats plastered over its ceiling. Once their lectures and seminars are done for the day, students flock to it - hence the surprising number of drinkers found inside on a weekday afternoon.

Tony has been landlord of the pub since 2010. Before then he managed the university's bar and function suite at the Carnatic halls of residence in Mossley Hill. He believes the Augustus John, or the AJ as it is known to regulars, plays a very important role with young drinkers.

As he took a break from serving pints, the 58-year-old from Aigburth told the ECHO: "I think we introduce students to pub life and what pubs are about - being part of the community, meeting people. They're not just about drinking, they're about socialising and meeting people.

"Hopefully, in years to come, they will have had a great experience in here, with good customer service and good products, so they'll carry on using pubs. This pub is a gateway - some people who come to university have never been in a pub.

"I was speaking to some in September and they'd never been. They lived in a village in Cheshire and all the pubs had shut down. If you can't get anywhere, then you won't go.

Inside the Augustus John pub
Inside the Augustus John pub -Credit:Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo

"Everybody knows it as the AJ. It's a fixture of student life. There was talk a few years ago of the area being redeveloped and there were a lot of staff, students and academics saying they wanted the pub to stay. They needed it."

Though Liverpool city centre is not short of options for students to drink in, the AJ is very much 'their' pub, according to Tony. The Cambridge is also found on campus and the Georgian Quarter's wide-ranging offering is just spitting distance away. But many thirsty scholars gravitate to Peach Street.

Tony explained: "There is a mix of pubs for the students - here and The Cambridge particularly. But this side of campus, this acts as their pub.

"There's a hall of residence nearby and, like any pub, they become regulars. It's exactly the same as a pub anywhere else. We do have a lot of regulars who have been coming here for years and we have a lot of staff (at the university) who are regulars.

"It's a melting pot of different people. But we work on a different time-scale to a lot of pubs. If you come in here between 4pm and 8pm, it will be absolutely heaving.

"After 8pm it starts to get quiet as people go back to their rooms and get ready to go out again. But they're obviously going out until 6am now - it's a different world."

In most people's minds, students' demands from a pub are quite simple. They presumably want to be able to buy as many pints as their stretched loans will allow - with quality an afterthought.

However, that no longer seems to be the case. In his near three decades of working for the university, Tony has noticed plenty of changes in the drinking culture among the city's student population.

He said: "We do a whole range of products - I think the days of students looking for cheap and cheerful booze are gone. You don't get things like £1 a pint anymore and people aren't looking for that.

"My personal view of it is that, because students are used to living in debt now and taking loans out, they're looking for quality. If you can get a decent beer for £4, they're quite happy for that. Students will now drink gin and tonics and vodkas, the world has changed.

"People are sick of bland beers, so you may as well pay £1 extra or 50p extra for a decent beer and get some quality. Also, a lot of young people do drink less and they will go for lower alcohol options and no-alcohol options.

"We do well from them and we have a nice range here and we sell a lot. But the students who do drink are not drinking the volume of previous generations.

Tony O'Donnell outside the Augustus John
Tony O'Donnell outside the Augustus John -Credit:Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo

As such, Tony takes the quality of his beer very seriously. Before working for the university, he was employed by Manchester brewery J.W. Lees and has maintained an interest in sourcing and serving good ales since.

He said: "We've been in the Good Beer Guide for years. It's very much a point of pride, we've been CAMRA cider pub of the year numerous times. We are currently pub of the year for cider and I've always been interested in real ale.

"I worked for J.W. Lees, it was a family brewer, so I've always had an interest. The staff have got an interest and it becomes a bit of a hobby, sourcing ales and sourcing things that other pubs might not be able to get hold of."

Though it is a firm fixture in student life to Liverpool, the AJ is not only for students. Its reputation for good beer means it draws in plenty of locals - as well as people on pub crawls.

Tony said: "We'll have locals pop in all the time - families who have lived around here for years. They use us as a local, they know that we're very competitively priced and it's a bit quieter later on.

"They can come on a Friday night and it's quite nice to sit here at 9.30pm and put your feet up. It's quite unique that afternoons and early evenings are the busiest times.

"If you come in on a Friday evening and you can barely move and in the summer, the outside areas are absolutely rammed all the time. We get loads of locals, loads of regulars and they're mainly families who live around here and then hospital staff from nearby. I would say we've got a really nice collection of pubs this side of town.

"When people come on a pub crawl around this area, they will normally start here or at Peter Kavanagh's and work their way around. Obviously, we're a little bit out of the way so people make the effort to come here - especially on the ale trails. People will start from here."

The Augustus John is found on Peach Street, inside the University of Liverpool's campus. It is open until 11pm every day - other than Sundays, when it is closed.