Liverpool's craft beer choice has changed substantially since the start of 2025. New specialist bars have opened outside the city centre, established breweries still run their own taprooms, and several 2026 pub openings have put cask, independent and continental beer back at the centre of the bar.
This guide covers the established Liverpool craft beer bars that remain useful in 2026, alongside the most relevant openings from late 2025 and 2026. Last checked: 30 September 2026.
Liverpool does not have one single type of craft beer bar. There are specialist bottle shops with constantly changing taps, working brewery taprooms, pubs built around cask ale, neighbourhood bars pouring independent keg beer and newer venues mixing beer with pizza, music or large outdoor spaces.
For this guide, the focus is on places where the beer range itself is a substantial part of the reason the venue exists. It is not a numerical ranking, and a traditional cask pub is not being judged by the same criteria as a brewery taproom.
Liverpool craft beer bars compared: area, style and opening date
Venue
Area
What distinguishes it
Status
Dead Crafty Beer Company
Dale Street
Specialist craft beer bar with rotating taps and 200+ bottles and cans
Established
Azvex Brewery and Taproom
King Edward Street
Working brewery taproom with 12 taps
Established
Black Lodge Brewing
King's Dock Street
Liverpool brewery serving its own keg and cask beer
Established
The Ship & Mitre
Dale Street
Around 200 draught and bottled beers, with a large hand-pulled ale range
Established
Dead Crafty Allerton
Allerton Road
Second Dead Crafty site, bringing the specialist format to south Liverpool
Opened December 2025
Black Cat Parr Street
Parr Street
Craft beer, cocktails and live music from the Black Cat group
Opened October 2025
Shandon Bells
Hope Street
Traditional pub with regular and changing cask ale
Opened 2026
Goldie's
Colquitt Street
New York-style pizza with local and craft beer
Opened 6 July 2026
The Black Horse & Rainbow
Berry Street
Continental beer, cask and a large beer garden
Opened 24 July 2026
Village Cat
Woolton
Cask lines, rotating craft beer and two gardens
Opened 31 July 2026
The Angel Inn
Bold Street
Traditional cask, stout and continental lager
Opened 12 August 2026
The Dead Crafty Beer Company, Dale Street
Dead Crafty at 92 Dale Street remains one of Liverpool's clearest answers to a straightforward search for a specialist craft beer bar.
It combines a bar with a bottle shop. Its official website says the fridges contain more than 200 beers that can be drunk on the premises or taken away, while the draught selection changes rather than relying on a fixed line-up.
Dead Crafty Beer Company on Dale Street, one of Liverpool's established specialist craft beer bars. Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wikimedia Commons.
That format matters because it gives Dead Crafty a different role from a general pub that happens to have a few craft lines. Beer selection is the core of the business.
The city-centre site is at 92 Dale Street, L2 5TF, close to several established real-ale pubs and part of the wider Dale Street beer cluster.
Dead Crafty Allerton brought the same format south in late 2025
One of the most relevant recent openings is not in the city centre.
Dead Crafty opened its second Liverpool site at 97 Allerton Road on 12 December 2025. The company lists both locations on its own site and confirms the December opening date.
The significance is geographical. Drinkers looking for a deep craft selection no longer necessarily have to head into Dale Street, the Baltic or the northern edge of the city centre.
The Allerton bar carries the same emphasis on changing beer and a substantial bottle-and-can range. Liverpool City Council's licensing register also records an active premises licence at 97 Allerton Road.
For searches around new craft beer bars in Liverpool in 2025 and 2026, this is one of the clearest matches.
Azvex Brewery and Taproom
Azvex gives Liverpool something different from a beer bar buying from multiple breweries: the taproom is attached to the brewery itself.
The taproom is at Unit 16 King Edward Street/Gibraltar Row, L3 7HJ, north of the city centre. Azvex says it currently has 12 taps pouring fresh beer, alongside cans that can be taken away. Details are on the Azvex taproom page.
Current published taproom hours are Thursday 4pm to 10pm, Friday 4pm to 10pm, Saturday noon to 10pm and Sunday 2pm to 8pm, with additional openings possible around matches and events. Those hours can change, so check before making a dedicated trip.
Azvex also runs brewery tours and tasting sessions on selected Fridays and Saturdays.
For someone specifically searching for a Liverpool brewery taproom, rather than a conventional city-centre pub, this is one of the most direct options.
Black Lodge Brewing, King's Dock Street
Black Lodge is another case where the brewery and the place you drink are directly connected.
The brewery operates from 3 King's Dock Street and describes its Liverpool site as a brewery and taproom serving its latest beers on both keg and cask, with food from resident traders. See the Black Lodge Brewing website for current details.
The location sits on the edge of the Baltic and King's Dock area rather than in the main Ropewalks nightlife streets. That makes it particularly useful for anyone already around the Baltic, waterfront events or the southern docks.
Black Lodge also operates a separate brewery tap in West Kirby, but the King's Dock Street taproom is the Liverpool city venue covered here.
The Ship & Mitre, Dale Street
The Ship & Mitre sits at the traditional-pub end of this guide rather than the modern taproom end.
Its own site says it carries around 200 draught and bottled beers and describes its hand-pulled ale range as the largest in Merseyside. It also holds CAMRA recognition.
The Ship & Mitre on Dale Street, photographed in 2009. Photo: John Bradley (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia Commons.
That range can include real ale, continental beer and modern craft alongside more traditional styles, which is why it remains relevant to a craft beer guide even though its identity is closer to a long-established Liverpool pub than a contemporary craft bar.
It is at 133 Dale Street, a short walk from Dead Crafty. That makes Dale Street one of the easiest areas of Liverpool to compare very different beer-focused venues without crossing the city.
Black Cat Parr Street opened in late 2025
The Black Cat group expanded into the city centre when its Parr Street bar opened in October 2025.
The operator describes craft beer as central to the Black Cat format, alongside cocktails and events. Its current Black Cat site also shows Parr Street being used for live jazz, quizzes and other programming.
The Parr Street site is particularly relevant because it brought a south-Liverpool beer brand into Ropewalks. It also sits close enough to Colquitt Street, Berry Street and Bold Street to be combined with several of the 2026 openings below.
New craft beer and beer-led openings in Liverpool in 2026
The strongest change during 2026 has not been the arrival of one giant specialist beer bar. It has been the spread of beer-focused pubs and bars across Hope Street, Ropewalks, Bold Street and Woolton.
Some are modern craft venues. Others are closer to traditional cask pubs or continental beer houses.
That difference is useful when choosing where to go.
Shandon Bells, Hope Street
Shandon Bells opened on Hope Street in early 2026, next to Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.
Its model is deliberately traditional rather than built around brightly branded craft cans or a wall of keg taps. The venue describes itself as a pub inspired by Cork, serving pints, toasties and Irish traditional music. Its official site has the current opening information.
Liverpool CAMRA records both regular and changing cask ale at the pub.
So although Shandon Bells is not a specialist modern craft bar, it belongs in this guide for drinkers whose idea of good independent beer includes cask and traditional pub service.
It is at 88 Hope Street, L1 9BW.
Goldie's, Colquitt Street
Goldie's opened its standalone Colquitt Street venue on 6 July 2026 after previously operating as the pizza offer inside PINS Social Club.
The main product is New York and New Haven-inspired pizza rather than beer, so it would be misleading to describe Goldie's as a dedicated craft beer bar.
It is here because the drinks side has been built with a substantial draught offer including local and craft beer, making it relevant if the aim is pizza and craft beer in Liverpool city centre rather than a specialist bottle shop or brewery taproom.
Liverpool City Council's licensing register records Goldies Slice Bar at the Colquitt Street site under a current premises licence issued in June 2026.
The Black Horse & Rainbow, Berry Street
The Black Horse & Rainbow opened on 24 July 2026, bringing an older Liverpool pub name back to Berry Street after the former Red Door site was redeveloped.
The venue takes a broader approach than a dedicated craft bar, combining continental beer with cask, cocktails, live music, sport and a large outdoor area.
Its most obvious physical difference is the scale of the outdoor space. The redevelopment created a beer garden with capacity for around 250 people, along with heated terrace areas and additional function space.
Village Cat opened at 5-7 Allerton Road in Woolton Village on 31 July 2026.
It combines four cask lines with keg craft beer, continental lager, cider and cocktails, as well as two outdoor gardens.
The operator's website confirms that the Woolton location is now open and lists it alongside its other Liverpool venues.
The opening expands Liverpool's beer choice away from the city centre. Together with Dead Crafty's Allerton Road site, it means south Liverpool now has considerably more dedicated craft and cask choice than it did before the end of 2025.
The Angel Inn opened at 90 Bold Street on 12 August 2026, occupying the former Maggie May's premises.
The two-floor pub is primarily focused on the traditional side of beer: rotating cask ale, stout, cider and continental lager rather than a modern craft-taproom format.
Its location changes the beer choice around upper Bold Street. That part of the street has a high concentration of restaurants and cafés, but fewer venues centred specifically on cask beer.
For drinkers moving between Bold Street, Hardman Street, Hope Street and Ropewalks, the Angel also fits naturally into a wider city-centre beer route.
Where to go for craft beer in Liverpool city centre
If the priority is the deepest specialist beer range, Dale Street is still the simplest starting point. Dead Crafty provides the modern independent craft selection, while the Ship & Mitre covers a much broader combination of real ale, bottled beer and continental styles.
For beer brewed at source, look towards Azvex and Black Lodge.
For a cluster of newer places, Ropewalks now makes more sense than it did two years ago. Parr Street, Colquitt Street, Berry Street and upper Bold Street put Black Cat Parr Street, Goldie's, Black Horse & Rainbow and The Angel Inn within a relatively compact part of the city.
Hope Street adds Shandon Bells slightly further uphill.
Craft beer in south Liverpool
The biggest structural change since 2025 is probably outside the centre.
Dead Crafty Allerton brought a dedicated specialist craft beer bar to 97 Allerton Road in December 2025. Village Cat followed in Woolton in July 2026 with a mixture of cask and modern keg beer.
The wider Black Cat network also remains active around Smithdown and Rose Lane. Its current website continues to describe craft beer as a core part of the business and publishes changing beer details through its social channels.
For readers exploring the area rather than making a single bar trip, L1Local's Smithdown Road guide covers the wider food, drink and transport context.
Craft beer, cask ale and brewery taprooms are not the same thing
A search for "craft beer Liverpool" can produce places that offer quite different experiences.
A brewery taproom such as Azvex or Black Lodge gives direct access to beer produced by the brewery itself.
A specialist craft beer bar such as Dead Crafty buys across breweries and styles, so the attraction is breadth and rotation.
A cask-focused pub such as The Angel Inn or Shandon Bells concentrates more heavily on hand-pulled ale and traditional pub drinking.
Then there are hybrid venues such as Village Cat, Goldie's and Black Horse & Rainbow, where independent or continental beer is substantial but shares the bar with cocktails, food, music or sport.
Knowing that distinction is more useful than treating every place serving an IPA as the same type of venue.
Which Liverpool craft beer bars are new in 2025 and 2026?
For anyone specifically searching for the recent openings, the confirmed sequence covered by this guide is:
October 2025: Black Cat Parr Street opened.
12 December 2025: Dead Crafty opened its second Liverpool site at 97 Allerton Road.
Early 2026: Shandon Bells opened on Hope Street.
6 July 2026: Goldie's opened its standalone Colquitt Street venue.
24 July 2026: The Black Horse & Rainbow opened on Berry Street.
31 July 2026: Village Cat opened in Woolton.
12 August 2026: The Angel Inn opened on Bold Street.
Not all seven are specialist modern craft bars. That is intentional. They are separated here so someone looking specifically for new beer-led openings can tell the difference before choosing one.
What has changed since 2025
Liverpool's craft beer offer used to be easier to describe geographically. Specialist places were concentrated around Dale Street, the Baltic and a smaller number of south-Liverpool neighbourhood bars.
The 2025 and 2026 openings have spread that choice.
Allerton now has a specialist Dead Crafty site. Woolton has Village Cat. Hope Street has a new cask pub. Ropewalks has gained several different beer-led formats within walking distance of each other. Bold Street has added a dedicated traditional ale house.
That gives drinkers more choice without requiring every trip to start in the same part of the city.
Opening hours, tap lists and individual beers change frequently. For a specific beer or limited release, check directly with the venue before travelling.
Comments
Join the conversation with your L1Local Community account. Keep it civil and on topic.