Lichfield Pub Explorations

In which I spend a day in Staffordshire's second city, discovering micro pubs, dictionaries, Bathams, and good value Bass.

As I arrived early on an empty stomach my first stop was in Spoons.

The Acorn Inn (16-18 Tamworth Street, Lichfield, WS13 6JJ)
A reasonable hanging basket effort, perfectly parked mobility scooter, and a good cross-section of morning punters in a pub that stretches a fair way back from those front doors. Lichfield's JDW opened in 1998 and was named after the pub that once stood next to it.
On the bar I spotted local beers from Black Hole and Silhill breweries.  But it was 10:30am, and I was being sensible - a breakfast only visit.  

I made a goof on the app and forgot to add the hot drink to my side of two slices of toast.  Without the 49p coffee it's not a bargain item on the menu - in fact, you could almost get a pint of Jaipur for the price of these two slices of bread.  And to top it off they had one of those rotten toasters that only toasts one side.  Bah. 

Let's make up for it with a bit of sightseeing...

Everything was looking glorious in the May sunshine that preceded the Great Drought of 2025.
I ambled through the pedestrianised city centre streets with a market in full swing.
Then past Minster Pool and on to the cathedral and Erasmus House.

If the tourist board had been beaming out a 'come to Lichfield' message over the years I've completely missed it.  It was the powers of Life About Football who tempted me to visit with tales of bargain Bass.

I looped back to where I'd started at Spoons, straight across the road from Beer Guide entry Beerbohm.

Beerbohm (19 Tamworth Street, Lichfield, WS13 6JP)
This is very much a Belgian-style cafe bar.  Local CAMRA-type folks in the window boldly tackling the Sarah Hughes 'Dark Ruby Mild' before noon, plenty of other customers on a mix of pints and pots of tea, sat under a busy wall of pictures and mirrors facing the bar counter.
Surprisingly busy so early.  Relegating me to the least convenient, least comfy table in the room.

To be fair, the website does say there's "A large comfortable upstairs room", but I figured I'd be all by myself up there.
Other than the ruby mild, cask options came from Salopian, Peakstones Rock, and this little political hot potato from Church End...

 

I liked the pump clip but didn't fancy the beer, opting instead for the Peakstones 'Pugin's Gold Bicentenary Ale'.
Sipping that first beer of the day, I could see the Beacon just across the road, so figured I'd call in once I'd finished. 

The Beacon (20 Tamworth Street, Lichfield, WS13 6JJ)
This was previously a pub called the Pug, prior to Titanic taking over in the autumn of 2024.  It's a bold place to open a pub - two GBG bars across the road (more on the second one later), Spoons as neighbours, and the Quill and Scholar two doors down with happy hour cocktails.  I figure you could complete a Tamworth Street pub crawl in less than 200 steps.

The problem with the Beacon is that it was oh so painfully quiet.  Two other customers around a corner, a staff member lurking behind the pork pie counter, no TVs, no music.

I enjoyed a half of Titanic 'Plum Porter' but it wasn't a thrilling visit.
For the record, alongside six Titanic real ales, there were guest ales in the form of Cameron's Motorhead-themed 'Road Crew' and Salopian 'Oracle'.

Heading back outside, I decided to poke my head into Samuel Johnson's birthplace, now a museum and bookshop.  He looked a little bit like this...

The museum contains a replica of Johnson's dictionary, allowing me to look up 'contrafribularities' and 'pericombobulation'.

After that literary and cultural aside, it was time to find another pub, this time a Good Beer Guide regular on a quiet street just beyond the shopping streets.
I have no answer as to why the Horse & Jockey has an elephant on its roof. 

The Horse and Jockey (8-10 Sandford Street, Lichfield, WS13 6QA)
"Over 21s only" says the a-board outside, so lucky I've got some ID on me.  Other than the young chap behind the bar, there were few folks inside the Horse and Jockey who were likely to fall foul of the age policy.  But it was doing a decent early afternoon trade in real ale and cobs.

I perused the pump clips and ordered a pint of Batham's Best.

Somehow I missed the fact that this is a Bass stronghold.  It has its own hand pump hidden around the corner and I'm not observant enough to spot the chalk-board hung right in front of me with 'Bass served here' written on it.  Never mind - the Bathams is something I'd never see back home and is a cracking pint.
Plus, I had the Life After Football backup for Bass...

George IV (34 Bore Street, Lichfield, WS13 6LU)

I get a scowl from the fella outside who spotted me taking the pub picture.  Freddie McGregor 'Just Don't Wanna be Lonely' playing on arrival.  Horse-racing on the TV next to a wallpaper print of an old map of Lichfield.

Bass on the bar (bad luck, Wainwright fans).

No bar staff.  "She'll be back in minute" promises the local next to me between swigs from his bottle of Katy cider.

There was a wide mix of life in the George - tradesfolk in trousers with lots of chunky pockets, a chap with a whippet, an old boy with his crossword, heavily tattoed youngsters on the Peroni.
There was a moment of action in the front room when a chap barely managed to stay on his feet after sending furniture toppling.  
"It's his fault," he said (possibly with some more colourful language) indicating the absentee whose chair was upended.  "He's hung all his heavy shopping bags on the back of the chair and made it top 'eavy.  Now I've gone and trod on his sausages!"

 

And that Bass?
Not a bad pint, whilst not being quite good enough to tempt me to change plans and stay for a second.
Even at a bargain £2.95.

One last port of call before heading to the train station.

The Whippet Inn (21 Tamworth Street, Lichfield, WS13 6JP)
This was back on Tamworth Street again - one door down the road from Beerbohm.
The Whippet is about as good lookin' as micros get - plus top marks for the signage above the door.  Inside there is reputedly space for 45 - 25 on the benches - although I wouldn't fancy squeezing in as the 25th patron.  It felt pretty cosy with half that number in.

They served up another great selection of cask ales from which I picked the Sureshot porter 'Don't Get In the Kiln'.  Sat on the bench by the window, reading the local CAMRA mag with a quality bluesy rock soundtrack, this was a superb final beer.

Having arrived in Lichfield without really clicking that it was such a picturesque and pleasant sensibly-sized cathedral city, I came away a happy visitor. 
Highly recommended for a spot of tourism and pub patronage.  Just don't hang your sausages on the back of your chair when you're popping for that Bass refill in the George IV.

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!

Atherstone Pub Crawl

An afternoon spent in the north Warwickshire market town Atherstone, situated midway between Tamworth and Nuneaton.  Home to just over 9,000 people, it was once a centre for hat making, has one of those free-for-all pancake day football games, and a pretty impressive number of public houses.

I arrived on a Sunday lunchtime, strolling down the main street to the market square which has three pubs/bars facing onto it and is overlooked by St Mary's church, featuring an impressive octagonal embattled tower.

A few steps from the church is the Angel Ale House, with a place in the Good Beer Guide '24.

Angel Ale House (24 Church Street, Atherstone, CV9 1HA)
Atherstone's sole current Good Beer Guide entry has a fair few regional pub of the year awards hung on the wall and was serving a decent range of real ales when I visited.
Five pump clips, and miniature bottles for you to check the colour, offering up beers from Oakham, Woodfordes, Vale of Glamorgan, and Leatherbritches.  I went to the dark side with a lovely Beowulf 'Chocolate Porter'.  Everything reasonably priced between £3.60 to £4.20 a pint.

 

Sadly the turntable next to the bar wasn't in action, the piped music featuring the lesser-heard Aha 'Take on Me', and the very frequently heard Boston 'More than a Feeling' and ELO's 'Mr Blue Sky'.

There were a reasonable number of punters for a Sunday afternoon, some taking drinks out onto the tables on the square.  The retirement bash seemed to be favouring coffee over real ale, although perhaps the hardcore ladies continued their celebrations by hitting the Bass in the New Swan later in the day.

Talking of Bass...

The Black Horse (156 Long Street, Atherstone, CV9 1AE)
This was one of a handful of pubs in the town promising to serve a pint of Bass and I wasn't to be disappointed on that front.  Two hand-pumps in the Black Horse, although the second had it's Doom Bar pump clip turned around, not causing me any disappointment whatsoever.

The trouble with the Black Horse is that - despite looking like it would be from the outside - it wasn't very pub-like.  There was just one alcove in the front room with proper pub seating by the fireplace.  Beyond that we were into the realm of functional high-backed restaurant chairs.

I took my pint into the back room and decided this would be a good a spot for lunch.  So here's my Sunday nut roast - lacking a Yorkshire pudding - but a good feed for the day.

The attentive staff apologised that it took so long, explaining they had to cook nut roast to order 'cos they don't get many vegetarians.  Still, better than one pub in North Devon I visited recently that didn't do any veggie options as "we're a farming community and we don't have vegetarians round these parts!"

Glancing at the map, I realised that I could continue straight down the road for about a mile and it would take me into the neighbouring village of Mancetter and a heritage pub.
That seemed a good way to walk off lunch instead of just crossing the road to the Old Swan.
The Blue Boar makes for a good pub picture..

The Blue Boar (Watling Street, Mancetter, CV9 1NE)
The current pub was rebuilt around 1940 for Mitchells and Butlers on a large corner plot, car park in front of the sizable building.
I stepped through the door into a loud and raucous public bar, where the local folk had chosen to stand around the bar shouting to each other rather than utilise any of the seating.

On the bar were three beers from the local Sperrin brewery: golden, ruby, and mild.  Alongside Doom Bar.  A pint of the mild for myself, taken into the peace and quiet of the lounge.

Mild on great form.  Local CAMRA mag to read.  Lovely surroundings EXCEPT for that wallpaper!

The Blue Boar has a design typical of large pubs built at the time, where a number of rooms surround a central bar.  Beyond my seat in the lounge was the old Smoke Room which has been extended and turned into a restaurant area.
Here's the PropUptheBar bench seating picture of the month...

Finishing a very satisfying mild, I trekked back along the road to Atherstone.
Long Street really didn't need the boy racer driving up and down it at 80mph.

Back where I was 45-minutes earlier, the Old Swan sits straight across the road from the Black Horse.

The Old Swan (175 Long Street, Atherstone, CV9 1AH)
Another pub with a mention in the Heritage Pub guide, this time because the interior remains little changed since a '60's refurbishment.  The front room has a dozen surprisingly sweary and cheery-looking locals on the three tables facing the bar.  There is a second section to the right of the front door with good trad seating, a busy back room, and a fair few people opting for the garden on this sunny afternoon.

Cask on offer was Banks's Amber or Courage 'Directors', the latter with a cardboard make-shift pump clip.  The Old Swan served a decent Banks's and was a pub I was pretty settled in.

 

Just a short way along Long Street was another destination that I'd got marked down for a pint of Bass.
The Hat & Beaver (I'm reliably informed this is now the only pub with that name in the country) looked every bit a proper boozer.

Hat & Beaver (130 Long Street, Atherstone, CV9 1AF)
Sadly it was a little bit too quiet within.  There are two sections to the bar, one facing the back room and a counter in the front room where you'll find the cask hand pump.
A couple of old boys sat on the bench seating chatting to the landlord and keeping half an eye on footy on the TV.  A handful of folks had picked the table right at the far end of the back room.  I un-sociably sat right in the middle on some well-worn cushioned bench seating, enjoying the Bass. 

After a quiet pint in the Hat & Beaver, I returned to more signs of life in the market square.  I figured I'd call in to the Market Tavern which had a good crowd and a bunch of motorbikes outside.

Market Tavern (21 Market Street, Atherstone, CV9 1ET)
It looked like the Market Tavern was making an attempt to challenge the Angel for a beer guide place.  Pump clips stuck on the beams and lots of signage advertising the real ales and ciders.  There were five handpumps across the bar with two from Windsor & Eton Brewery, a breakfast stout from a brewery I didn't identify, 'Swoop' from Brass Castle, and - my pick - an Unbarred 'Joosy'.

This was a cracking place to finish a crawl around the town.  There were a fair few customers, the sun was shining through the windows, there was some lively music pumping out the speakers, and the very crafty 'Joosy' went down so easily.
All-in-all, a town I knew little about beforehand that was well worth a visit for a crawl around some of the pubs.