Feature: Liverpool's secret "Pub Lab" to open doors to public

A hitherto secret Liverpool pub, which doubles up as a university research laboratory, will temporarily open its doors to public, it was announced Wednesday.

It has a fully-stocked bar, with beers, wines and spirits as well as snacks such as potato chips and nuts.

It is used to carry out crucial research work in a real-setting by academics and students from the University of Liverpool's Department of Psychological Sciences. The department also runs the UK Center for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies.

The Pub Lab as it is called is to open its doors for the first time during the Medical Research Council's first annual Festival of Medical Research taking place from June 18 to 26.

The Pub Lab is an official laboratory equipped to give the appearance of a pub. This is to help increase the ecological validity of experimental research.

The lab is used for research investigating contextual influences on drinking behavior, and the acute effects of alcohol on cognitive processes such as the automatic processing of drug-related cues, behavioral control and impulsivity.

Department head Prof. Matt Field, who also leads the Addiction research group at the university, said: "We opened the Pub Lab a few years ago, after one of our senior lecturers Dr Abbi Rose, suggested a life-like pub setting for our research work."

"Until now the only members of the public to come in are people helping us with our research. We do serve real alcoholic drinks to them and typical bar snacks, and we are able to take various measurements and reactions in what is a real-life setting," he said.

Among its many initiatives, the lab creates placebo drinks to measure reactions from people given alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. It also measures alcoholic intake under different circumstances. One example would be whether people tend to want more alcohol if they eat bar snacks.

"We did one experiment which measured whether typical anti-drink posters on the walls around the bar influenced people's drinking," Field said.

For safety reasons, research volunteers are not allowed to consume large quantities of alcohol during their visits to the lab.

The bar is open to visitors on Monday and Tuesday next week. Endit