Conor Devlin only wanted to make one change when he took over The Vernon Arms.
The 58-year-old had been the manager of the traditional Dale Street pub for some time, working under previous owners Jimmy and Barbara Monaghan. When Jimmy and Barbara announced they were retiring in January of this year, Conor, originally from Dungannon, County Tyrone, was a natural fit to become the owner.
Conor, who had been a regular in the pub long before he worked there, wanted to keep things almost exactly the same. But it may not shock you that the one change the Irishman had in mind related to Guinness.
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He told the ECHO: “When I came over from Ireland, I was startled that there was only Guinness Extra Cold – that was a very strange thing and I couldn’t get my head around it. In Ireland, the starting point is Guinness regular. Then you can have extra cold if you want.
“The first thing I did when I came in was that I got an extra Guinness tap, so we could do Guinness regular. I wanted to bring the temperature up a few degrees – now, it’s creamy, thicker and there’s more flavour to it.
“I can tell when anybody walks into the bar and asks for a Guinness, I know who’s going to have regular or cold flow.
“If they’re Irish they’ll have the regular, if they’re from Liverpool and a little bit older, they’ll have the regular. The younger go for the extra cold – we know what they’re going to have.
“I drink Guinness, so it has to be good here. I’m always watching it.”
As you would expect from any good landlord, Conor takes his beer seriously. The Vernon Arms is known for the quality and quantity of its cask ales and it has received CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) every year since 2009. Conor is passionate about real ale and wants to maintain that reputation.
He explained: “This is a real traditional pub. It’s exceptional to have something like this in the centre of town because it’s the last of a dying breed, having these sort of pubs in town.
“I don’t plan to change that, it works very well and I want to keep it like that. It’s renowned for real ale, just today the 2024 CAMRA LocAle award has just gone up. You’ll see up above the bar, there’s an award every year from 2009.”
The pub’s seven hand pumps are always in use, serving ale from across the country. Conor always wants to support local breweries, however, and Wirral brewery Brimstage always sells particularly well.
He said: “Trapper’s Hat (a session ale) flies out – anything from Brimstage does. Brimstage is one of those breweries that you can drink by brewery.
“I don’t care what the drink is, it’s by Brimstage so I’ll have it. Their Oyster Catcher porter is astonishing, they gave me that as an exclusive last year.
“They brew it seasonally, they stop it in April. I was trying to convince them to go on, because I can sell a porter all year round – I have a porter coming on today.
“It’s really important to support the local ales. Brimstage would stand up against any ale in the country.
“Supporting the local breweries is key – you have to do that. There are some fantastic ales nationally and we get those in, but the local ones are top.
“Essentially, we’re a real ale pub and I don’t think you can exist today if you’re just going to sell lagers. You have to do real ales.”
The Vernon’s regulars include a lot of cask ale drinkers, who feel right at home in its traditional surroundings. When he took over, Conor didn’t want to do anything to upset that.
“For me, it was just about keeping it open because it’s really, really important to the community and as a hub for people”, he said. “So I didn’t even want to close the doors for one day – that’s what we managed to do at the end of January, we took it over and kept it open.
“The real thing that I love is that the same faces are coming in. The same guy sits there and he comes in at this time of the day and sits there. If I didn’t see those people, I would be worried.
“It’s a bit of a home for people, it’s never changed, so people still feel very much a part of it. The same people who have been coming in for years continue to come in at the same time, order the same thing and sit in the same place. It’s one of those places that if that doesn’t happen, you get concerned.”
Conor added: “I looked over recently and there were two couples sitting here. They were in their mid-70s, it was a Tuesday evening and they were having a pint of real ale, a Guinness and the ladies were having a glass of wine.
“I just thought – we’re facilitating that. They’re sitting here, having a pleasant Tuesday evening and we’re creating that environment for them. That’s really special, you know. It’s lovely to do that.”
The Vernon is one of many historic pubs in Liverpool’s business district, Conor values his neighbours and believes they all work well in harmony.
He said: “Our strap line is ‘Putting the ale in Dale Street’. The thing with this street is that it’s the only street in the country that has five bars in CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide, no other street has that.
“You’ve got all these pubs and all on the one street. On Friday, a lot of people start at the Ship & Mitre and then work their way along and then their way back down. All us pubs work together and this is an astonishing part of town to drink ale. It would tick every box for real ale.
“That’s something I really wanted to work with. It’s the beer quarter – to have The Ship and The Excelsior nearby all doing good ale benefits us all. That’s the way to work it, everyone loves a pub crawl.
Being part of a hub of pubs in the centre of Liverpool is something that Conor had always wanted. Though his route to running The Vernon is far from conventional.
He explained: “I left Ireland over 30 years ago. I went to Belgium – my background is IT and I worked in the European institutions in Brussels.
“I kept coming to Liverpool. Then I moved to London but I kept coming to Liverpool. It used to drive me mad, I’d leave on a Sunday but everyone would be coming out – back in the day when all the families got dressed up and came out on a Sunday afternoon.
“You would get every age group, the young, the dads, the grandads, all coming out. I was leaving that and going home, so it really drove me mad. So I thought – I’m moving to Liverpool and that’s what I did.”
The landlord is not quite sure how he ended up swapping a career in IT for the hospitality industry. But he thinks his family history has something to do with it.
He said: “I used to come over here to drink and then an opportunity came up to manage the place, so I slotted into that. It was recently that I was thinking, maybe it is in my DNA because my grandfather, who I never met, actually had a bar in the docks of Belfast. Belfast
“Docks were devastated in the Blitz of 1941, the entire area doesn’t exist anymore, but my father grew up in that bar in Belfast, there are publicans on my mother’s side as well, so it’s probably in my DNA. Lying there, unaware of it.
“I’d more or less retired two years ago, I thought I would idle about.
“But this opportunity came up to take it over, so I fell into it. It wasn’t planned at all, I had no idea I would do it, no intention of it, but perhaps that bit of the publican in me had awoken.”
The Vernon’s band of regulars will be very glad it did.
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Robert Johnson is a UK-based business writer specializing in finance and entrepreneurship. With an eye for market trends and a keen interest in the corporate world, he offers readers valuable insights into business developments.
