Tamworth Pub Explorations

My explorations of the Midlands town began with a lunchtime pint in a pub named after a 19th century prime minister...

Sir Robert Peel (13-15 Lower Gungate, Tamworth, B79 7BA)
This is a cracking town pub, as agreed by the folks at CAMRA who honoured it as part of their 50th anniversary golden awards.
Step inside and the bar is to the left, with some seating on high stools under a skylight, then more conventional tables in the adjoining room.

Five cask ales on offer, the three from my picture below and Vocation 'Red' or Nuttycombe 'Doonicans' a little further down the bar.

The Sir Robert Peel is the kind of pub that I really like - great ales and a good atmosphere, with a decent number of customers present to say the clock had only just ticked past midday.

The Robert Peel has a great choice of artwork, breweriana, and oddities adorning the walls throughout.  From my seat I was checking out the (authentic?) signed Oasis pic, old Guinness adverts, and classic Monsters of Rock posters. 
And Slash is on the wall overseeing the Gents... 

A little further along the same road you'll find the Kings Ditch.
I didn't visit this micropub on this 2024 visit for the good reason that it was closed on the day I was in town.  But I did call in a year ago in May 2023.  That was one of my great unwritten blogs (there's a fair few of 'em), as I got sidetracked by important real world adult stuff. 

Kings Ditch (51 Lower Gungate, Tamworth, B79 7AS)
That 2023 visit was an unusual one in that I found the front door locked with a 'sorry closed' sign on it despite there being a fair few chaps sat within supping their pints.  The landlord took pity and poked his head out to explain that they'd run their stock down as they were off on a two week holiday the following day.
"So, we're closed because we've run out of beer", he said..."unless you like dark beer".
Yup!  Dark beer's great!
And so I was permitted entry to do my little bit in helping them finish the barrel of Leatherbritches 'Bohemian Dark Export'.  A hefty 5.9% porter that was delicious, but may have contributed considerably to my roundabout route on the trains to get home which I suspect my ticket wasn't valid for.

The Kings Ditch opened in 2014 in a premises that was previously a cycle shop.  Well worth a visit for an interesting selection of beer, a super cider selection, and a friendly local crowd.

On the other side of Gungate is a grand old-school pub...

The Globe Inn (Lower Gungate, Tamworth, B79 7AT)

An older inn on this site was brought by Aston-based brewery Frederick Smith Ltd at the end of the 19th century. They promptly knocked it down in order to built something more striking in an era when breweries were keen to make a statement with their impressive tied houses.  The current building was opened in 1901 as hotel and public bar.

It's a spacious pub within, open plan with distinct areas leading off to the side and rear.  Plenty of TV screens dotted around for those who want to watch the sport.
Here's Tamworth's Manchester United fan.  They weren't winning...

Two regular cask ales are available in the Globe, with my attention solely on the Bass.  It was on brilliant form here - a thoroughly enjoyable pint.

Heading straight back down the same road towards the centre of town and the shops, I elected to call into a pub I didn't know much about.  Maybe swayed solely by a chap sitting on the table outside drinking Belgian beer from the proper glass.

The Sheriff of Tamworth (10 Colehill, Tamworth, B79 7HE)
Cask ales on offer were Church End 'Vicar's Ruin' or Titanic 'Mild' on cask, alongside a good keg selection and Belgian big-hitters in the fridge.
No space for me to sit in the small bar area to the right of the door, so I had to go exploring the different options with my Church End ale, ending up lonely in a side room.

I had Alannah Myles's 'Black Velvet' playing in the background to entertain me, strangely coming on twice in a row.  Followed by The Cars 'Drive'...TWICE in a row.
Then Alien 'Only a Woman' which actually started up for a THIRD time in succession, at which point I decided it was time to go!

There is actually more to do in Tamworth than traipse around from one pub to another, so I feel obliged to pause briefly before heading onward to the Pub of the Year.
St Editha's church was looking good in the sunshine... 

If you fancy swapping beer drinking for roller coasters, Drayton Manor amusement park is just down the road - my annual trips there when I was a youngster were always a highlight of the year. 
Then there's the Snowdome, TripAdvisor's top attraction in the the town, where an unbalanced PropUptheBar tottered down the slopes trying to learn to snowboard.
And there's the castle and the pleasant park surrounding it...

But of course, 90% of Tamworth's visitors are here for the Tamworth Tap...

The Tamworth Tap (29 Market Street, Tamworth, B79 7LR)
This is the fourth pub to have been handed the accolade of CAMRA Pub of the Year twice, the only one to have done it two years in a row.

The award is for more than just beer choice of course, but the beer choice was magnificent.
Eight casks in total, serving beers from Three Hills, Green Duck, Thornbridge, Stone Daisy, Bristol Beer Factory, Sarah Hughes, Bathams, and Attic.
Strewth, what to pick?  The chap at the side of my pic below was waving his glass at me and telling me I had to have the Dark Ruby Mild.  Any other time, maybe, but I past needing a 6%er.

Instead I ended up with a golden ale from Birmingham brewers Attic called 'Beams', which probably wasn't the best pick of the bunch.
This is a great pub...lots of nooks and crannies, tons of beer signs and breweriana all over the walls, a pleasant upstairs overflow, and a courtyard out back overlooking the back walls of the castle.

You'd think after such a variety of good pubs in the town I'd be able to resist a visit to Wetherspoon's.  But it was handily close to the Travel Lodge where I was staying and it would have been odd not to at least poke my head in.

The Bole Bridge (8 Bolebridge Street, Tamworth, B79 7PA)
This pub is named after a long-gone pack horse bridge which once stood at the end of the road, providing a crossing over the River Anker.
It has a narrow frontage with some alarmingly steep steps, then stretches a fair way back, with the furthest seating bright under a glass ceiling.

What had really attracted me was the fantastic endorsements of the beers on offer from Emma B on Untappd...

As well as those above, there was Theakstons 'Old Peculiar', Titanic 'White Star', Elgood 'Golden Newt', and Black Hole 'ALEien Invasion', supplementing the Spoons regular bitters.
I went for the latter of those, a tasty pale ale, from the Derbyshire brewery with beer names to keep a sci-fi fan happy.

NB: Mine is a very dull and predictable pick of Tamworth pubs - see Life After Football's 2022 crawl around the town for how to do it properly!