Ex-landlord on a giant pubcrawl around UK says Liverpool drinkers are the luckiest in the country

A former landlord on a quest to visit every pub in the UK reckons Scousers are the luckiest pubgoers in the country!

Dale Harvey, who’s so far been to 5,077 out of around 40,000 ale houses on his mammoth mission, says Liverpool has been the best place so far.

“I’ve just been blown away,” he adds. “There is literally somewhere different on every street corner and it’s just incredible.

“I’ve visited 78 Liverpool pubs and the city is just amazing.”

The Vines Big House in Lime Street and The Philharmonic Dining Rooms were the first two venues Dale, 37, visited and he says: “With these two, it was the architecture and the structure of the buildings, it just blows your mind how beautiful there are. They seem too grand to be pubs.

“I mean you just look around and up at the ceilings and it’s like, wow, how can these be pubs?

“You go into some other modern dingy looking sports bar with no history, and they are serving the same purpose – but these places are so much more than that.”

Dale started his quest with wife Holly, 32, three years ago.

And what was initially a hobby to save the humble pub and get people going back to their locals, has now become a full-time job.

He’s launched The Great British Pub Crawl by filming videos and posting reviews on social media, and it’s now got 110,000 followers on Facebook, 16,000 on TikTok and 14,000 subscribers to its YouTube channel.

Dale goes on: “The first time we went to Liverpool was October/November last year around Holly’s birthday, and we asked for suggestions on Facebook like we always do.

“And for the next day or two we just had countless recommendations, I think we ended up with about 60 to 70 with people saying ‘you’ve got to try this one’ or ‘you’ve got to try that one’… and there’s only so many pubs you can visit in one day.

“We worked out a list and started off at The Vines with the next one to head to The Philharmonic Dining Rooms, but even between them we were walking past 20-30 other pubs. Everywhere you look there were more to see.

“People had suggested Peter Kavanagh’s and we didn’t get there until about two weeks ago on our fourth visit, but we walked in and again, it was like, this place is incredible.”

Dale stays clear of giving pubs a numerical rating but judges each one on its merits.

He’s a keen craft beer drinker who loves a craft beer bar or a modern brewery and the ex-publican takes into account the pint that’s offered, but he also makes note of a venue’s history or architecture.

“I live in Nottingham which, supposedly, has the oldest pub in the UK, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, which has been there from around 1189, and you drink there and you think about all the people that have walked through those doors.

“It’s the same in Liverpool, its pubs are part of the city’s culture and history, its heritage.

“I love The White Star at the back of Mathew Street and the story of The Beatles being paid in the back room, things like that are just amazing to me. You ask anyone, anywhere … you can go to Indonesia and everyone’s heard of The Beatles – and you think I’m now sitting in a little room where The Beatles used to come and get their money for their gigs!”

Scousers themselves are also a big draw for Dale: “Scousers are so friendly. Wherever we go, we meet lovely people, but the Liverpool hospitality has always been perfect and the people there are great.

“They are passionate too and when they read my jumper and find out what I’m doing they’re like, great, carry on, and give me loads more suggestions.

“There are so many places I want to get to and so many places I get distracted by en-route. Liverpool is just amazing.”

The Bridewell is another favourite of Dale’s and, on his to-visit-next list are places like Ma Boyle’s Alehouse and, even, Gino’s 360 Sky Bar in Old Hall Street: “I also want to get towards Bootle and the pubs around the football grounds, and if I don’t get back there this week, it will be next week.”

With hundreds of pubs closing each year, Dale’s hope is that he can encourage people to go back to their once favourite pubs or try new places in a bid to help save the nation’s locals and support the pub industry.

“We get messages from people who’ll say they’ve lived in city for so long and have never been into a certain pub and now they go there all the time, or pubs who’ll see an influx of people who’ve seen them on my YouTube channel.

“It’s great to be introducing new people to new places and hopefully  long may it continue, and we can help get people back into some of these pubs. 

“I went to 76 pubs last week and I’m loving every minute of it.”

You can follow Dale Harvey on his pub crawl here.

Read more features from The Guide Liverpool here.