Although set up for diners, the Cross House in Formby has good atmosphere and good, cheapish beer. Lancaster Blonde was my choice yesterday and went down all too well. Lots of interesting guest beers coming up.

There was a time when Alan Stubbs’ bar Woodwards was the place, but it seems to be fraying round the edges. Ashasi was the only interesting beer on offer and is was packed with mrnbof the divorced and 45 category.

Quite why an ‘upmarket’ wine bar offers Carling and Carling EC as main beers is beyond me. Get some Germans in there.

Meanwhile, The Chapel Bar over the road has closed and The Grapes is finally offering Cask.

The Bay Horse in Formby, one of the most shockingly vandalised pubs in the history of local boozers,  has been fined over £13,000 for being caked in grease and dirt.

Good. No one who cares one jot about pubs should ever set foot in the Toby monstrosity that was once one of the finest melting-pot bars of them all.

There is a curse on the place, one woman has already choked to death and parent company Mitchell and Butlers nearly went to the wall recently.

Remember, caked in grease and dirt. Remember, cursed.

Things didn’t start well at the Hightown last night. As we walked in, a man collapsed in front of me, blood streaming out of his nose.

Stepping over the body, I was greeted at the bar by six hand pumps. A Tom Woods bitter (so-so) was followed by a Burton-something (unimpressive) before I stuck on Bass Cask, a shadow of its former self but decent enough for a session.

Old pic of Geoffrey Miller, he's lost the tash now

Landlord Geoffrey Miller has a generous promotion that knocks 50p off a different pint each night. Savings are worth making in the Hightown as there is no doubles bar, meaning a round gets pretty expensive when you’re with spirits-drinking pals as I was. As bad luck would have it, Carlsberg was the cheap beer on offer and I’m sick of the stuff.

As the collapsed patron was carried out to an ambulance, we took in the good things about this pub.  There’s a separate room for dining, (although this does spill out) reasonable beer, a separate games area and lots of old-fashioned charm and laughter.

Bad things included the bar staff. The bar man was way too stressed and is probably in the wrong job. When I asked him for a top up – after I’d given him a tip, mind you – he looked at me the way one would look if asked to muck out a stable.

He wouldn’t chat or smile and dived from one customer to the next as if we were orphans come begging for Christmas soup at a Christian Brothers seminary.

You can only serve one person at a time, chum, try to do it with a bit of style.

The young barmaid was a bit scatty, too, serving double G&T and Steamboats (Southern Comfort, Lime and Lemonade) in the docker’s glass you see below. Again she was tipped handsomely but got very shirty when asked for drinks to be served in proper glasses.

Training is required of bar staff. Too many landlords just let glum-faced misfits work their bars with a damn-your-eyes attitude to the customer. But a good bar man or maid is worth their weight in gold. Customers gravitate to pubs with good bar staff, it is just as important as good beer.

The best thing about the Hightown is that it is literally a stumble away from the train station. If you’re on the Southport to Liverpool line and have a yen for a pint, you’d be better jumping off there than, say, the Railway in Formby.

It is an good local for local people, but don’t mention the C word there. Landlord Miller hates Camra and has barred all members.

The Royal Hotel in Formby is one of those pubs that suffers from locals preferring to lock themselves inside their expensive homes rather than mix with the hoi polloi.

In a bid to tempt people back, the Liverpool Road ale house is offering a full range of traditional pub competitions including pool, darts, dominoes, shove ha’penny and shuffleboard. Beer pong is not on the menu.

Landlord Andy Jackson is finding life tough after the smoking ban came in but is working hard to make the pub a hub for pub-shy locals.

“Running a pub is certainly a lifestyle rather than an occupation,” he said wearily.

The Freshield is not one of my regular haunts, being a little out of the way. But the chance to meet the brewer of Bolton’s Bank Top beer and sample some of his ales persuaded me to board the rattler and make the very pleasant five-minute walk from Freshfield Station.

The pub, which is on Massam’s Lane, is a charming, old worlde sort of place  with lots of nice antique furniture, wooden floors, comfortable seats and superb range of guest beers.

I’d like to say something about what the brewer had to say about his ales, but alas, gentle reader, I found my knee stuck to the bar as the evening passed in good conversation with Camra members Ian and Julie, landlord Gareth and local heart-throb Andrew Ashcroft.

The ales were hit and miss, in my opinion, the best being Flat Cap – a hoppy, golden beer with hints of orange in the taste.

Someone standing at the bar told me that the beer had originally been called Fred’s Cap after chimney toppling flat-cap wearer Fred Dibnah.

Apparently the widow Dibnah heard about the brew and contacted the brewery asking for royalties, prompting them to rename the beer and pay for new pump clips and advertising.

However, there is no truth to the rumour that revenge was a motive in naming their next two ales Gold Digger and Old Slapper.

Gareth and Joanne of the Freshfield Pub, Formby, have arranged a “meet the brewer” night featuring the Bank Top brewery of Bolton on Thursday July 3.

There will be a range of beers from the brewery on offer (as well as their usual impressive range), a presentation on brewing and an opportunity for the customers to ask the brewer any relevant questions they like.

The event is free and is likely to be the first of a number of similar events to take place. The Freshfield is on Massams Lane and just 5 minutes from Freshfield station.

The landlord of The Pheasant pub in Hightown is commissioning an ale for the Open and appealing for help naming it.

John Bentley, licensee of the pub on Moss Lane, is asking people to come up with a name for the bespoke brew, which will be bottled and available for a short time around the golf championship.

Once named and produced, they will give away 10 bottles every day to the first ten people to ask at the bar during the week leading up to the tournament 17-20 July.

Leave details behind the bar or call 0121 362 4021.

I’ve searched high and low for Brains SA, the favourite beer of my university days, only to find the Welsh are keeping it for themselves.

Yet since swearing off alcohol for Lent, I’ve seen it on at the Wheatsheaf, Croston, as well as The Phoenix and Guest House in Southport. Am I cursed never to taste it again?

Speaking of curses – and yes this is really bad taste – I mentioned that doom and misfortune would plague the Bay Horse in Formby after they destroyed the old and beautiful pub and replaced it with a Toby carvery.

First we had the financial collapse of Mitchells and Butlers. On Saturday a woman choked to death in there. Spooky stuff.

It’s hard to have sympathy with the Mitchells and Butlers pub chain.

M&B, who run several popular pubs in the area (such as The Crown (Birkdale), the Railway (Formby) and loads of Toby’s, Vintage and Ember Inns) are in dire straits after a gamble on the property and financial markets left them £391m out of pocket and heading for a takeover or merger with that other pub monster Punch Taverns.

Although the news was only announced yesterday, staff round here knew something was brewing. Despite booming business, budgets and staffing levels have been cut back amid rumours of trouble. Barmaids I spoke to today were pretty bitter that stupid movements in the financial markets, rather than punters not buying steak and ale pies, could see them out of a job.

The pub got involved with the controversial real estate tycoon Robert Tchenguiz, who told them they could sell their pubs to a company that would lease them back. The plan went kaput after the cost of debt rose dramatically last year and the company was left exposed by the falling value of hedge funds (a form of financial spread betting) taken out, ironically, to minimise risk.

But the chain was bound to come a cropper because they run their pubs in a cynical and greedy fashion.

Few in Southport can forget or forgive the sheer vandalism that was their transformation of the Hesketh Arms in Churchtown from a fantastic village ale house to a big wooden spoon of a fake gastro-pub nightmare.

But that monstrosity pales into insignificance when compared to the hateful way they transformed Formby’s Bay Horse into a Toby Carvery shed.

The Bay Horse was a pub where aristocrats and gypsies rubbed shoulders, were the beer was always good and the conversation always flowing. Despite furious protests, they killed it stone dead.

It doesn’t matter that they serve cold cask ale in some of their pubs, or that they are often tastefully decked out. They deserve to go to the wall because they are opposed to truth, beauty and tradition.

Being a considerate family guy, I promised my family a lunch at one of the Formby by-pass Bermuda triangle of carveries.

First call was the Red Squirrel, which used to serve cask beer but looks as if it’s given up since becoming part of the Harvester chain. Luckily, it was packed with old farts so we couldn’t get a table.

Next stop was The Pheasant, until recently a granny-eating-soup-for-three-hours nightmare. It’s been tastefully done up and was busy with posh people from Formby knocking back Continental beers and fruity wines.

There was an interesting looking menu but still no real ale, so I trudged back to the car and told my wife there was a 15 minute wait for a table so we should try the Weld Blundell over the road and come back if there was nothing doing there.

The Weld  is the oldest of the new triumvirate and was once a decent boozer until having the life sucked out of it by the stricter drink-driving laws and a succession of chain-pub destructions.

On entering I was impressed by the new decor and even more by the large sign declaring”Cask Beer available, today’s beers Marston Pedigree and Cains’.

Now you can keep your Pedigree, but Liverpool’s Cains is another matter. Darker than most bitters with a lovely malty flavour yet light and refreshing enough to enjoy a gallon of, it has been rightly taken to local hearts.

So imagine my horror on settling down, ordering a meal, then coming to drinks to be told Cains was off, and so was the Pedigree.

No real ale, then? The waitress said she’d check. She returned, beaming, with news that John Smith’s Smooth was on. She was most put out when I told her I wouldn’t drink that slop if she paid me.

After scanning a alcopoppy wine list  I sulkily ordered a Coke.  The dinner was not bad. The children cried. We left early. So it goes.

I’ve since heard that the pub hasn’t had cask beer on other nights despite it’s large and prominent sign. A case for Trading Standards?