Welcome to the Autumn edition of MerseyAle.

Unfortunately, as I am finalising MerseyAle, we are on the eve of a local lock down across Merseyside. Back in March I did write ‘The next MerseyAle will hopefully be a bumper printed edition’, but sadly this is not the case. I’m sure most of us had hoped things would return to some sense of prer-Covid normality by now, but instead, some of the changes due to Covid have become the new normal.

Both locally and nationally CAMRA continues to support pubs and breweries where possible. This has included renewing the ACV on the Roscoe Head (see page 13). We have also had some publicans go out of their way to support their regulars, including delivering directly to those who were shielding, highlighted in the Lockdown Heroes article on p10. There are, of course, many pubs and breweries in the branch that have provided take out, and/or delivery services throughout the pandemic and continue to do so.

This year we have been unable to host our awards evening, but fortunately we have managed to deliver our Pub of the Year and Pubs of Excellence certificates, (article on page 30). If you are able to, please call in and support then.

Whatever you do, StaySafe and I hope it’s not too long before we are enjoying some locale beers together in one of the many excellent pubs in Merseyside.