The Evening, sorry Birmingham Mail recently pronounced it's Top 10 Birmingham pubs and it's a solid list. Admittedly it's based on unspecified criteria, but this is not intended as a nit-picking blog post, more of a conversation starter and gosh darnit, a celebration of some fine Brum establishments.
The Wellington, The Anchor, The Black Eagle, The Bartons Arms, the Old Contemptibles are no-brainers: places that combine good beer choices with a convivial atmosphere/good decor etc.
For the rest of my five, this is my thinking (in no particular order):
Lord Clifden
Lovely artwork, good music, ping-pong, a GREAT beer garden and just enough good beer to top things off. Cool pub.
Post Office Vaults
New kid on the block and already the subject of it's own blog post. Could be the City's top venue soon enough.
Lamp Tavern
Small, located on an industrial estate, and fantastic. The welcome is warm, the beers are well kept and the banquette seating takes me right back to Syston in 1992. A magnificent survivor.
The Shakespeare (the Summer Row one, not the Lower Temple Street one)
The Mail chose Bacchus, but I've gone for a different Nicholsons pub. I love the arrangement of the L-shaped front room, with it's elegant street aspect. I love the fact that it is Brum's most reliable stockist of Moor beers - this fills me with a deep joy. This is almost my favourite.
The Brown Lion
This one scrapes in if I'm honest, as it is still a bit underfurnished and not quite lived in, although it is early days. The beer is what brings me here, because the BroLi is the brewery tap for Two Towers - one of Birmingham's small crop of microbreweries. At first, even the beer wasn't enough to bring me back regularly, but TT are pulling their fingers out now and I'm becoming quite paternal towards them.
What connects the above five places and the five Mail choices that I agree with? Well, after a bit of chin scratching I think that it's some ethereal combination of good beer choice and an aspirational outlook. I want to leave a pub with a good tingle on my tastebuds and a spring in my step.
Birmingham doesn't yet have a proper craft beer bar, but it does have some nice beer venues; and when I think back to late 2004, just prior to the opening of the Wellington, things were really grim. Only the Anchor was shining a light. Our City has come a long way.
And my favourite place of all? Probably the Anchor. Just.
Whats your favourite, my beer brethren?
(With apols to the Red Lion, Prince of Wales, Old Joint Stock, the Junction (Harborne)).
Showing posts with label Bacchus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bacchus. Show all posts
Monday, 16 January 2012
Monday, 9 January 2012
Some rapid feedback on Sunday's stolen crawl
Let's strike while the iron is hot. Let's do another blog post and try and learn how to use Blogger a bit better.
Anyway.
The televised football finished about 3.00, and I was supposed to be on the other side the City by 3.30, with a journey time of between 40-60 minutes. I wasn't going to make it. I would face a wrath. Oh dear, may as well make it worse by squeezing in a mini stolen crawl.
That was the backdrop to Sunday's mad dash down New Street in search of beery treasure (which I wasn't to find). It was a further chance to play one of my favourite games - 'guess which Birmingham pub might be serving a good beer'. Now this popular local pass time involves reading about all the lovely beers being supped across the UK (Twitter helps with this), then hoping that one of these might have reached Brum, then closing your eyes and jabbing your finger into a Birmingham pub map, in the hope that you might pick the right venue for that good beer. It's a bit like playing the national lottery.
So off I trot, to hit two Nicholsons pubs, right in the centre of town, both with beautiful interiors, but middling track records for beer, although fond memories abound for previous good 'finds' of Salopian Kashmir and Moor Gold, Frankincense and Moor.
The Shakespeare (which interestingly enough is one of three pubs in central Birmingham called 'The Shakespeare' - nothing like cashing in, eh?) is a rather nice, snug boozer, squirrelled just off New Street, next to a posh shoe shop. It used to be a bit rougher than it is now and as such is very pleasant. The beer is rubbish 50% of the time mind, but bless them, they do try. The beer (range that is, not the way it was kept) was rubbish today also, but scored a half of Leeds Midnight Bell and found it to be a reasonable dark ale, certainly a smooth one. Are Leeds a good brewery? The jury is out.
Bacchus Bar is a beautiful mish mash of medieval banqueting hall and Victorian opium den, hidden conspiratorially under the Burlington Arcade on New Street. It's dark, romantic, opulent, clean, posh and interesting and usually has 3 rotating handpulls. Unfortunately, not much was on today, only Doom Bar, Brains' Rev. James and Dorset Ammonite. I've never sampled anything from the latter, so quickly guzzled a half of caramelly, lager-hopped strawness. Not brilliant. Not terrible though.
And that was that. It took about 20 minutes all told. I should have taken some pictures really, that would have livened this page up somewhat. I'll remember next time.
Anyway.
The televised football finished about 3.00, and I was supposed to be on the other side the City by 3.30, with a journey time of between 40-60 minutes. I wasn't going to make it. I would face a wrath. Oh dear, may as well make it worse by squeezing in a mini stolen crawl.
That was the backdrop to Sunday's mad dash down New Street in search of beery treasure (which I wasn't to find). It was a further chance to play one of my favourite games - 'guess which Birmingham pub might be serving a good beer'. Now this popular local pass time involves reading about all the lovely beers being supped across the UK (Twitter helps with this), then hoping that one of these might have reached Brum, then closing your eyes and jabbing your finger into a Birmingham pub map, in the hope that you might pick the right venue for that good beer. It's a bit like playing the national lottery.
So off I trot, to hit two Nicholsons pubs, right in the centre of town, both with beautiful interiors, but middling track records for beer, although fond memories abound for previous good 'finds' of Salopian Kashmir and Moor Gold, Frankincense and Moor.
The Shakespeare (which interestingly enough is one of three pubs in central Birmingham called 'The Shakespeare' - nothing like cashing in, eh?) is a rather nice, snug boozer, squirrelled just off New Street, next to a posh shoe shop. It used to be a bit rougher than it is now and as such is very pleasant. The beer is rubbish 50% of the time mind, but bless them, they do try. The beer (range that is, not the way it was kept) was rubbish today also, but scored a half of Leeds Midnight Bell and found it to be a reasonable dark ale, certainly a smooth one. Are Leeds a good brewery? The jury is out.
Bacchus Bar is a beautiful mish mash of medieval banqueting hall and Victorian opium den, hidden conspiratorially under the Burlington Arcade on New Street. It's dark, romantic, opulent, clean, posh and interesting and usually has 3 rotating handpulls. Unfortunately, not much was on today, only Doom Bar, Brains' Rev. James and Dorset Ammonite. I've never sampled anything from the latter, so quickly guzzled a half of caramelly, lager-hopped strawness. Not brilliant. Not terrible though.
And that was that. It took about 20 minutes all told. I should have taken some pictures really, that would have livened this page up somewhat. I'll remember next time.
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