Most serious drinking pubs in Liverpool have a bit of heritage about them: they are fixtures as familiar as street lamps and go back decades. Somewhat surprisingly, this is not so with The Dispensary. It sprang up just a decade ago from the shell of an old man's boozer, The Grapes, on the corner of Rapid Hardware Street and Oldham Street in an area that is quietly renowned as a real booze and curry lovers' jackpot. Pharmaceutical items, fixtures and fittings from old chemist shops, Liverpool University and the Liverpool Pharmaceutical Society abound in an effort to give it a traditional pub atmosphere and visually evoke a Victorian dispensary. It certainly did the trick for real-ale lovers CAMRA who voted it English Heritage pub refurbishment of the year 2000 and also Merseyside pub of the year. Cains tenants Pauline Keady-Williams and husband Dave run The Dispensary, prescribing a cure-all for the world's ills in the shape of medicine on tap from the Upper Stanhope Street brewery, this week finding itself in dire financial straits with administrators being called in this week. Why go there? It serves arguably the best beer in town, if they do say so themselves, although Dominic Hornsby, from the nearby Fly In The Loaf, would doubtless disagree. Who goes there? The Dispensary's main allure seems to be for chaps, in there to either marvel at their chosen pint in solitude (“I come here to hide from the wife, ” one un-pictured punter told us) or to philosophise in small huddles about the state of the world, occasionally all pausing to marvel at that pint again.
