58.
CAMRA pubs of the Black Country by bus and tram,
Dave and I decided to pay a visit to Ed
'Smiley' Lewis in Birmingham to critically evaluate the worth of a leaflet, put
together by CAMRA and the West Midlands Municipal Public Transport Executive in
back-slapping style, designed to get people out and about and sampling decent
pubs by bus and tram. It was a splendid day. In order to make the most of it,
we went up on the Friday evening, and got in the swing of things by having a
few beers in the suburb of Harborne. Most of the pubs
had been visited last time, but I shall recap here
anyway. First of all, we visited the White Horse, a lively, Firkin-like pub
with witty ditties painted on the wall. The choice of ales was good in number
(Pedigree, Tetley, Adnams, Greene King IPA, Spitfire,
Bombardier, Abbot, Thatcher's cider), but lacked anything really obscure. The
Bombardier wasn't particularly nice, nor was the Adnams.
Then it was time to go to the Green Man (Homme de Vert), a big trendy pub on the main drag. The bar was
packed and they didn't have enough bar staff or bar stools so we didn't have an
overly enjoyable stay. They did have Landlord on which was a pleasant surprise,
along with Bass and Brew XI (yuk), but this also did
not live up to expectations. I maintain that Landlord is the yardstick beer on
which a pub's cellarmanship (or cellarpersonship
for the PC brigade) should be measured. Finally, before going back for a few
small single malts, we popped into the Plough, featured in the picture below,
to see if the barmaid who I fancied when we paid our last visit here was
serving. Alas she was not, but there were a couple of other wenches on. Despite
their presence, the lack of ale could not bring us to stay.
Feeling chipper the next day, and armed
with an A-Z and the leaflet, we made a prompt start at 11am by having a brisk
walk northwards to Bearwood at which point we
intercepted a number 9 bus which took us to Halesowen.
The one day Bus/Metro pass is splendid value at £3.50, although it was
disappointing that it was not on a card ticket but rather a flappy
paper jobby. First pub of the day was the Wagon and
Horses at Halesowen and we stood outside with a biker
who looked like Noddy Holder waiting for the place to
open at
Unfortunately there was only a couple of beardy blokes - otherwise we would have
had a ridiculous score on our hands. We decided to sit in a pink painted parlour a little away from the bar and watched as punters
went backwards and forwards to experience new and interesting flavours. During our stay a number of beers became
available, so we decided to have some more, and Smiley reported that the Top
Dog stout was 'remarkable'. Our other beers, and a varied array they were too,
were also by and large excellent, so full marks were given for quality, and
coming in at under two quid a pint ensured that they got a good price mark.
Other points to note in the pub are the outside toilets where one has to
navigate past a yard full of barrels to get to the urinals, and a signed
picture of Barbara Cartland in the pink parlour - apparently painted thus in her honour ('Barbara Cartland | Witch
and hag | too much make-up | fascist bag' as Tony Slattery once said). Alas, we
had to push on, but were very, very pleased indeed with the first stop of the
day.
After waiting a little while for a 248
bus, we sped to Netherton and alighted outside the
Old Swan, a homebrew pub with a very pleasing cosy
front parlour and some old people sitting having
lunch in a foody bit. A floppy haired halfwit served
us our beer. Once again the beer quality was excellent although there were only
four beers on - Bumblehole, Dark Swan, Original and
Old Swan Entire. The atmosphere wasn't quite as basic as the last place and it
would be quite easy to stay for a day and sample their range, more than once to
test for consistency.
Another bus ride followed, to
Yet more use of our tickets ensued, on a
541 round some dodgy estate took us to
Across the road was the Old Bull's Head
which listed about 6 beers as being in the cellar although only three - Woods
Get Knotted, Banks Original and Loddon Bloomin Eck - were on. Nonetheless it was worth a visit
although it was a shame to see large numbers of youths smoking and drinking
lager, they could have had some decent bitter instead. We decided to make quick
work of our ales as some pissed
Strolling up the hill, pausing to take a
snap of the local riot patrol car, it was soon time to reward ourselves with
some more beer at the Britannia in
The Jolly Crispin is a gay sounding pub on
the way to Sedgley which we hit at about
Whilst in there we got
chatting to some good old boy who was giving us tips for the rest of our day,
some of which we followed. He also gave us a bus map which turned out to be
invaluable. Again we would have liked to have stayed for another but time was
pressing and we had more establishments to try. Once again,
absolutely bloody marvellous.
Some solids were called for and in
answering this call we popped across the road to a chip shop where I got some
very nice cod roe and chips. Consuming this, we headed towards the Beacon Hotel
in Sedgley, due to open at
It was now time to make tracks to Bilston. We thought that there was going to be a problem
with the bus but owing to our recently acquired bus map, we actually found that
there was some hope. Sure enough a Dennis Dart arrived which the driver
proceeded to thrash all the way round some backstreets, and the sound the bus
was making were not that good, so I don't know whether it completed its return
leg. Sooner than expected we were at Bilston bus
station, looking for a pub nearby. Whilst gazing at the wall mounted transport
literature, it was revealed that one of the buses calls at the 'Pie Factory',
recorded in the photo below, which gave us great amusement.
Pulling ourselves away, we ambled into the
middle of Bilston to find the Old White Rose. This
pub was odd in that although their beer range was very good, it was lively and
not filled with crusty old farts. There was an extensive carvery
and lots of people on a day out were having enormous slap-up dinners. There
were so many people at the bar that we had to park ourselves at the far end by
the TV and some kids and watch the last part of
The layout of the bar was
actually quite like Clarets in Cheam, if you know it, with the bar near the
front and not too much circulation area around it. Dining
space at the back. We briefly considered another half, but as time was
progressing we thought better of it.
Another establishment owned by Wetherspoons was the Sir Henry Newbolt
in Bilston. This must be quite a recent one as the
decor is better and more stylish and minimalist. When we went in, the place was
quite deserted, but filled up whilst we were in there. The beer selection was
Courage, Spitfire, Pedigree, Banks and Taylor Dragon Slayer, Abbot, Cameron's Strongarm. We perched on some high stools and surveyed the
rest of the pub. Some slappers were noted in the far
corner and Ed commented that they were probably ovulating as they were wearing
few clothes. This is a scientific fact apparently. Just before our departure a
most bizarre creature walked in. We think that she was female but we were
unsure what race or indeed planet she was from. Someone who looked like Muhammed Ali [in his present state] was accompanying her,
and she was middle-aged, fat and had dyed hair. Some punters on an adjoining
table started laughing as we started laughing uncontrollably at the pair of
them (once they had gone down the other end). Finally, it was noted that even
though the toilets were very modern and nice, the floor was wet, a recipe for
disaster in a pub liable to fill up with pissed fools.
Fortunately normal service was resumed
across the road in the Trumpet, a pub doing exclusively cheap Holden's ales,
but with regular jazz nights. There was a band on when we went in and very good
they were, though they did seem to fill up half the pub and make egress to the toilet
difficult. We enjoyed our beers at the bar, and very nice they were too, with
the choice of Sedgley Lifter, Mild, Special, Bitter
and Golden Glow. A much more realistic honest pub than the Wetherspoons. The landlord of the Trumpet must have
been into his music as there were 20 odd year old concert tickets stuck onto
the bar - many favorites like Slade, Black Sabbath, Metallica
and Judas Priest. Splendid.
It was now time to catch a tram, and after
a longer wait than expected where ad hoc toilet facilities were created,
we whisked to
With time running out, we did hit one last
reasonable pub - The Old Crown down some backstreet. This pub does good curries
- there was an Indian chef milling around - but alas we had no time for this,
only for the beer. Only three were on - Enville, Old
Speckled Hen and Archer's Cupid's Arrow - but they were very good and quite
cheap. The atmosphere of the pub was very good, being welcoming and cosy, and quite like a plush front room. I would not have
minded staying for longer. But we had to move on to our last stop, the Billiard
Hall, yet another Wetherspoons, this one of the more
trendy, spartan chrome minimalist interior. We were
all feeling quite tired by this point, so didn't make many notes, but I believe
that it was quite average inside and there were only 2 beers on - Cottage
Sporting Whippet and Hopback Summer Lightning. At least though they were cheap and good quality.
We made our way back to
Postscript: On this crawl an accurate
record of piss stops was made. It is intended to report this research to the Journal
of Urology or Piss International. During our crawl, we all consumed
about the same amount of liquid, yet our piss tally was quite varied. I went 15
times, Dave 7 and Ed 4. How do you account for that??
Dan
Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com
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