Three cheers for the Brookhouse

It was whilst standing in the queue at the café known to some as the ‘Dirty Butty Shop’(next to RBS on Brownlow Hill) waiting for my favoured breakfast of hog roast roll with extra black pudding that I got into a conversation with an old boy on the topic of the changing face of Liverpool. His main gripe, it transpired, was how the ‘student area,’ as he called it, was so drastically different (shock horror) to how it was when he was growing up.

‘The Brookhouse on Smithdown,’ he mused with a tinge of sorrow, using it by way of an example, ‘I was in there a couple of weeks back, and it was packed with students. When I was younger they wouldn’t dare show their faces in there, they wouldn’t get served. The landlady was a terror and she wouldn’t have them in her establishment; if she could see it now…’

Of course, in an age when the fortune of the pub is in dramatic decline nationwide, sheer nostalgia is generally not enough to keep a once venerated establishment in business; whilst the Philharmonic and Peter Kavanagh’s can play on their heritage, The Brooky has had to move with the times. Long ago, it was what some might even refer to as part of ‘posh Liverpool’s’ establishment; my great grandfather’s wake was held there, something that would be unthinkable today.

Now, gone is the old coaching inn, gone is all pretence and fustiness, and gone are the middle aged men in suits with pints of dark brown ale and pipes who’d turn their noses up at ‘student types’. They are a thing of the past, and the student types now reign supreme.

Though hardly remote, it isn’t the most convenient location for halls; Carnatic and Greenbank (both in possession of their own bars) are closer to the Dovedale Towers and the Rose of Mossley respectively, whilst the Smithdown Road area also has the Dispensary, Willow Bank and (delightfully) the Clachan, but The Brookhouse does have the advantage of being at the very junction where Smithdown and Greenbank Roads meet, and equally as crucial, it has size on its side.

It isn’t especially pretty; the standard pictures of the Beatles adorn the walls, cheap, offensively bright curtains hang oppressively over the windows, and the interior is a mess. The clash of bare pipes and vents, sticky, cheap leather seating and mounted antlers give the place a confused air, unsure of whether it’s going for the feel of bog standard bar, steampunk-cum-industrial unit or hunting lodge. What, indeed, if the terrifying old landlady could see it now…

The thing is, all that is pretty much irrelevant. It’s a student pub with a huge capacity, Sky Sports and more promotions to its name than Neil Warnock; frankly, what more do you need? Every Wednesday, like clockwork, it’s packed to the antlers with inebriated AU members, serving cheap drinks to help our valiant sportsmen and women celebrate and commiserate in unequal measure.

It does those uninspiring, tepid cooked breakfasts that you suspect came from a package and aren’t even greasy enough to constitute a fry-up, but which despite being nothing special are exactly what’s required after a heavy night of drinking to prepare for a heavy day of drinking.

For big Premier and Champions league matches and other sporting events, it’s usually heaving. The Stonegate Pubco have removed all traces of the old boozer, but have created in its place an establishment that serves the needs of all Liverpool students; a safe atmosphere that caters for all your alcohol laced sporting and social needs.

It isn’t one of Liverpool’s best. It’s probably not even the best on Smithdown. Hell, the nachos in Derbibar are better and the pitchers are cheaper too. But frankly, where would we be without it? It’s the iconic pub slap bang in the middle of the student area, always filled to the brim, the first boozer you make your way to when you first venture from halls and the last place you drink every weekend. Where else would we go? Well, apart from Carnibar, Derbibar, the AJ, the Cambridge, No.5…

Fresher’s week has lost, over time, the legendary ‘Smithdown Ten’, a fairly self-explanatory pub crawl that was one of the formative events of the year for most students. However, the Brookhouse endures. So rather than drinking a pint in ten pubs, why not drink ten pints in one pub next Freshers, in honour of the place where the crawl all started? If you’re going to get rat arsed anywhere, you could do worse than our Brookhouse.

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