Unique pub offers 'a bit of everything' so 'you can bring your mates or bring your mum'

The Ship & Mitre is one of Liverpool's best-loved and most distinctive pubs. The 1930s art deco building, found at the Queensway Tunnel end of Dale Street in Liverpool city centre, takes its name from two of its previous pub incarnations - The Flagship and The Mitre.

The prevalence of 'the ship' is seen as soon as you walk into the pub, passing the promise of ales and stouts emblazoned boldly in a sign above the door. Its downstairs bar was changed in the 1970s and built to look like the inside of a ship, with its various drinking areas all feeling like their own different decks.

It must also be among the city’s best-stocked bars - a haven for beer drinkers. There are 42 draught beer lines, more than 100 different bottled beers, two ciders and eight cask ale lines - giving you quite the choice.

Providing the widest range of the best possible beer is central to co-owner Ben Garner’s approach to running The Ship. Ben, 53, who lives in Wallasey, told the ECHO: “I'm a person who believes more is more, the reason I only have 42 is because I can't physically fit any more in.

“I wanted to get to 50 but I would have to knock walls down to get any more in. I want people to come in and think 'that's new, that's different, I've not tried that'. I want us to be an introduction into different beers.”

Ben has not always worked in the hospitality industry. He took over The Ship in 2007, taking the plunge into running a pub when he wanted to try something new.

He said: “My best mate and I were managers in Asda. We always thought about doing something but then an opportunity came up here. My ex-brother-in-law used to have the pub, so we came on board to help him. He didn't particularly want to do it anymore, so we said we'd give it a go. We thought we'd try it for a year, see how we got on, but we're still here.

“It's been up and down in that time. When we first took over, when you start any new business, there's always a little bit of a spike. That did really well and it coincided with the Capital of Culture in 2008 - it really put the city on the map.

“It was brilliant, a lot of people came to the city for that. It changed from having a downtrodden view of the city to seeing it as a good place to go to. Then the advent of craft beer helped, having Belgian beer, German beer on offer. We've always done good beer, so every time there's a new niche, we just get behind it.”

Ben has also noticed plenty of change on Dale Street in the time that he has owned the pub. The street was once the heart of the city’s business district but it has had to adapt in recent years - with the council moving out of the Municipal building and the magistrates' court closing providing two significant blows.

He explained: “Covid hit and it was a nose dive. There's been a massive social change, we used to get a lot of office workers but with everybody working from home now, it's massively changed the way things are. But it’s (Dale Street) reinvented itself now. There's a much younger crowd attached to it.

“We've tried to brand as a beer quarter. We've got Dead Crafty, The Excelsior, The Vernon, Rigby's and so many more. We get people in from the hotels. Initially we noticed it when all the workmen from the Municipal started coming in, because they were working on it for two years. That was great, it was good for the area. It's another reason to come to Dale Street, there's meant to be two more new hotels, so that can only be good.”

Ben added: “People don't like to just sit in pubs and stay there all day now, they like to pop along a bit. We're the start or the end of the chain really, then you can get the bus or the train.

“We also did a beer festival ten years ago. We wanted to do outside events because our summer is really quiet. The students go home, there's no football on, so we thought we needed to do something in the summer. We started to do outdoor beer festivals, food and drink festivals as well.

“That developed into doing our own at Hulme Hall in Port Sunlight and we've done quite a few of them. You've got to keep on doing things differently.”

Doing things differently is key to what makes The Ship work so well. Its fantastic building houses a great venue, which somehow combines the feel of a working men's club with a classic but quirky pub to excellent effect.

Ben is glad that his pub is truly distinctive. He said: “It could be argued that they completely ruined it, driving a boat through an art deco building, but I think it really works.

“The Ship & Mitre theme is a bit of everything, we always wanted to keep the essence of it, no matter what we changed or what we did, we wanted to be a place you could bring your mates or bring your mum. It's what we always wanted it to be.

“Now, it's a case of adapting and doing what you can. We had our base in retail and retail is very cut throat, you've got to keep on changing things and doing things different from other people, try and give good service - that's what we've tried to do here.

“We're getting old now but we keep on asking the kids what they like and what they want. But we're lucky for pubs in this city because we've got this area and we've got the Georgian Quarter as well, so there's two amazing spots for pubs. We are very, very lucky.”