72. Second round of CAMRA pubs of the Black Country by bus and tram, Saturday 16th October 2004

Back in February, Dave Wacey, Ed Lewis and I had embarked on a most satisfactory crawl of the Black Country, using pubs suggested in a leaflet produced by the West Midlands Public Transport Executive. We had discovered some hidden gems, but had only got around about half of those suggested. Saturday 16th October gave us the opportunity to get around the remaining ones in the Northern sector.

The Sow and Pigs near the Black Lake stop of the Midland Metro was our first stop, and very nice it was too. Although there was no real ale on in this Banks pub, the halves of Hanson’s Mild were priced at only 75p each, and tasted good too. We had arrived during Football Focus, so the pub was quite busy with blokes and their kids. The interior has some quite nice plush seats around the edge, and there is also a superb window seat. However the absence of ale hastened our departure. Walking up the road, reaching the section known as Hill Top, we took the opportunity to line the stomachs with some competitively priced take-away fodder from the Hill Top Chip Shop. Dave had mini-fish, sausage, chips and gravy, Ed had jumbo savaloy and chips and I had cod roe, scallop, pickled egg and chips. A most satisfactory lunch; apparently the gravy was excellent. We now needed some liquid to wash this little lot down, so continued to the Coachmakers' Arms in Wednesbury, where there appeared to be no nearby dwellings. However, the pub was populated and cosy with its roaring fire. It was very traditional with horse brasses all over the place and brass guns on the wall too. A real ale was available, in the shape of Cottage Whippet's 'Gone with the Whippet', a competitively priced, nice tasting ale. The pub was also notable as it had three varieties of pork scratching on show, though as we had eaten, we declined these.

A little walk followed to the tram stop, where we boarded a tram to complete our journey to Wolverhampton. We had been told that the Great Western at the back of the railway station was very good, and sure enough it was, and we experienced our first decent selection of real ale of the day. A range of Holden’s was available: Mild, Black Country Bitter (possibly two varieties), special and Golden Glow. Guest ales in the shape of Ossett Warrior and Batham’s were also on. All beers sampled were excellent, and good value too. The layout of the pub is quite unique, there being a single bar at the confluence of two bifurcating limbs, which are connected by cross linking passages. Once again the interior was very traditional. Snacks are good, and include filled rolls. The toilets though had a very wet floor. A short, but most unpleasant and rancid, bus ride away was Wednesfield, where our first stop was the amusingly named Pyle Cock, which appears to open at 10.30 am too. This is an excellent pub. It has a front bar which is OK, but the hidden gem are the two side rooms, a sort of parlour and a fantastic smoking room with excellent plush seats. The toilets are also traditional, and included a bloke ranting about the price of ale in a poncey pub: 'Pint of lager, coke for the nipper, tonic water for the missus, seven pound fucking forty. I said to the barman, 'You'll not get a penny more from me'. Seven fucking forty, not even a gin in the tonic.' Although there were only two beers on, Courage Directors and George Gale Festival Mild, the mild was absolutely magnificent, being extremely velvety. It deservedly got full marks, and is firmly amongst the top beers that I have tasted. Smiley wasn't wearing his glasses and couldn't see the pumps so ended up with Directors... The pub got an extra quarter of a point because there was an amusing dog, and a hatch which is useful for serving those in the smoking room.

We then went out to the bus stop to catch a 560 to Bloxwich. However, I espied the words 'Free House' on a green sign, so we thought that we had better have a quick look just in case. As it turned out it was a day changing decision. The pub was the Royal Tiger which turned out to be doing beer from the beer garden at 99p a pint, evidently they were shifting the last of their Oktoberfest offering. Given that 16 beers were listed on a blackboard (see below for photo), and a further 8 were available over the main bar we decided to stay for more than one and for some reason the first was a pint... The Oktoberfest offering was thus:

1. Smiles Wurz Ale
2. Ushers Autumn Frenzy
3. Highgate Black Pig
4. Arundel Sussex Mild
5. Brains Merlin Oak
6. Caledonian 80/-
7. Wadworths Henry's Original IPA
8. Phoenix Navvy
9. Camerons Edenhof
10. Hall and Woodhouse Sussex Bitter
11. Banks and Taylor SOS
12. Thwaites Craftsman
13. St Georgen Brau Keller
14. Harviestoun Bitter and Twisted
15. Hopback Entire Stout
16. Jennings Cross Buttock

We kicked off with 12, 15 and 16, which were mediocre, perhaps because the festival was reaching its end. We then went for six different halves; I had to note down what each was: 1, 2, 4, 8, 9 and 13. The Mild, Navvy and Edenhof were the most interesting from the second wave, which was of a higher quality. Available at the bar were Woods Shropshire Lad, Sussex Dark Star, Eldridge Pope Royal Oak, Stonehouse Old Smokey, Marston’s Pedigree, Marston’s Bitter, Caine’s Raisen and Hyde’s Manchester. We didn't try any of these though as they were £1.29 per pint. The Wetherspoons itself was rather good. There was a barmaid, though she was grumpy with a moon face. The stonemasonry in the gents' toilet upstairs was also worthy of particular note as they hadn't just used a marble or granite - much of the facing was in a matrix supported angular conglomerate - 'that's a lovely breccia' remarked Smiley. Another good thing was that there were not too many weirdos in there.

Having finally torn ourselves away from this magnificence, we journeyed on a 560 bus to Bloxwich, joined on the top deck by some fit girls with odd accents. It was time for the football results when we alighted, so we dived into a nearby pub, the Spotted Cow. This was not amongst the recommendations of the CAMRA people, and no wonder, as it was an exceedingly rough, though busy, hole of a pub with fizzy keg piss beer. It was quite threatening actually as we stood in front of the TV, and for some reason it was a Man U pub too. We drank our crap beer and left. Because the Turf Tavern next door was not going to open for another hour or so, we could not be arsed to wait and instead went by bus to Walsall, where our first stop was another Wetherspoon’s, the Imperial, in an outstanding converted cinema/theatre. Despite the magnificence of the building, the pub itself was a bit of a let down, as there were only four beers on: Banks and Taylor Dragon Slayer, Spitfire, Roosters Special and Downton Chimera. Unusually for a Wetherspoon’s, they weren't even kept that well. Inside the pub, we made a number of observations, most of them not very complimentary. There were several bar maids, but even though they were of the right age, none of them were particularly fit. I described one of them as a 'stringy minger' whilst Ed described the passage of a plumper colleague up the stairs as 'the motion of a maggot or grub', describing her wavelike movement. There were also some German flags hanging from the ceiling, which reminded us of the red banners with swastikas on them that you sometimes see in films when they want to depict a Nazi establishment.

Normal service was fortunately resumed a few minutes later when we walked through the middle of Walsall to the Victoria, another wonderful pub with a roaring fire and two very cosy bars with an excellent array of 10 real ales on. The boring ones (Everards Tiger, Landlord, London Pride and Abbot) were in the back bar, so we stayed in the front bar for two sets of halves from the remaining six, which were: Golden Rain, Slaters Premium, Stairway to Heaven, Dabley Gold, Tim Taylor Dark Mild and Bank Top Volunteer. We settled in on their comfy seats admiring the brass crocodile on the mantlepiece and the foreign barmaid, whose English was obviously quite good as she understood the joke when I requested a Golden Shower. A word of warning about the toilets though as they are upstairs, and it is very easy when you come down the stairs to end up behind the bar. It goes without saying that the quality of beer was excellent, well worth paying for, as the prices are about average.

After a long wait for a bus, and a long ride on the bus back to Wolverhampton, Dave and I leapt off the bus for a piss behind some bins before resuming drinking. The Hogshead is a CAMRA recommended pub even though it is quite lively and full of lager drinkers. However, there is an adequate range of fine beer on offer too, though it is a bit pricey. There were five on offer that day: Tim Taylor Landlord, Deuchars IPA, Old Speckled Hen, London Pride and Enville White. They tasted pretty good, but the pub was noisy and busy, so we elected to drink up and move on. After briefly popping across the road for kebabs (Smiley had Chicken with a smidgen of chilli sauce, Dave had Donner with too much chilli and I had Shish with Mayo), we rambled out of Wolverhampton, to a very locally pub called the Chindit, with a front bar and a back bar. They have been known to have beer festivals, but on our visit they just had a standard range, although they were an interesting selection: Muttley's Pit Stop, Deuchars IPA, Orkney Dark Isle. All of these beers were very well kept, in particular the Dark Isle. We decided to stay longer than expected because we had found a brand new pool table and Smiley had decided to play a very negative game of frustrating pool which took forever and caused us to have a second half, and me to make for the pork scratchings. Eventually we finished, and I tried to get a picture of the lemon behind the bar which looked like a fanny, although it did not come out, sob.

Our final stop was the Combermere Arms, a pub that is poorly signposted that we missed on the way out. It's very small, almost just a converted house, but is nice enough inside, even though it is covered with Wolverhampton Wanderers paraphernalia. The barmaid was skinny, but pleasant. Beer was not quite as good as expected, fair enough there were four on [Banks Original, Banks Bitter, Marston’s Old Empire, Grand Union Autumn Ale], but it was a little pricey and not expertly kept. Nonetheless, the pub is still definitely worth a visit, if for nothing more than to experience the majestic gents' toilet, replete with tree growing inside and three man partitioned Victorian trough, demonstrated by Dave below.

We'd pretty much finished the day's drinking, so it was time to drift home effortlessly on the Midland Metro and a bus. We sat up in Smiley's flat for a bit longer slagging off Alan Titchmarsh's efforts to describe whiskey flavours shown on TV a few weeks before. We also looked at the piss tally for the day: Me 19, Dave 5, Ed 4.

The following day we drove back across country, pausing in Evesham to scope it out for a future crawl. It has great potential. We did however spot a sign for the Fox and Hounds in Great Wolford, and acted on this tip. It was a rewarding stop as it is a magnificent quaint country pub with low beams and such like. There was a French fool serving behind the bar, but he served good, if a little pricey, halves of beer, and quite an interesting selection was available: Hook Norton Best, Wetheroak Light Oak, Archers Red Admiral. To make even rounds, we paused at the Black Prince in Woodstock too, again very cosy, but unfortunately not having its full range of beers on at 5pm on a Sunday afternoon which was slightly disappointing. Evidence had suggested that some good ones had been on earlier.

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Dan Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com

Last updated 18th October 2004.