Rugby Beer Fest, Tap Room and a BCA Duo

An afternoon spent in the town of Rugby, visiting a couple of pubs that were new to me, then popping my head into the beer festival.  And let's squeeze a cheeky Coventry tick in on the way home, why not?
Yep, having grumbled profusely about the Six Nations last week, here I was heading to the birthplace of the game...

  

My last visit here was in 2019 when I made an idiotic valiant attempt to get around all the Good Beer Guide entries in one go.
The one I missed that time around was the Raglan Arms, now under the ownership of Black Country Ales but out of the Guide.  Whilst the new entry (a closed pub in 2019) is The Windmill, also part of the Black Country Ales empire.
Anyone still with me?

The Windmill Inn (1 North Street, Rugby, CV21 2AB - web)
Three storeys with bay windows on one side; and a very different second half, with an old carriageway entrance.  All overshadowed by the mock-Tudor of The Crown next door.

This was a pretty big pub with a pretty small number of customers on my visit.  All of whom seemed to be local, several of them taking the time to tell me the barman was changing a barrel and would be back in a moment. 

From the usual wide BCA choice, I ordered a Weatheroak 'Keystone Hops', my decision based purely on name and pump-clip, like the beer professional I am.

Lots of beers, no bar man

Sturdy bench seating

Quick picture of the best building in town...

Then a short walk past the Rugby School and through an underpass to the second Black Country Ales pub of the day.  I'll do all 42 of them eventually, but by that time they'll probably have added more.

Raglan Arms (50 Dunchurch Road, Rugby, CV22 6AD - web)
There were another handful of locals hanging out at the bar in the Raglan, but it was very quiet other than that, probably due to being just out of the town centre, at a time when sensible people are at work or sitting at home watching Tipping Point.
There was a nice snug in a front room, Northamptonshire skittles and darts at the back, and seating in the window alcove on repurposed beer barrels.

I know I'm in a minority - but I like sitting on old beer barrels!

I enjoyed a half of Welbeck Abbey 'Admiral Keppel', peacefully sat on red cushioned bench seating, reading Inn Touch, the local CAMRA beer mag.  A completely quiet and uneventful pub visit, which suits me fine sometimes.
Back-tracking on myself, I decided to pop into the Rugby Tap Room as I passed by.

Rugby Tap Room (4 St Matthew's Street, Rugby, CV21 4BY - web)
The bottle shop next door seems to have gone since the last time I was here, leaving just the one room with the bar at the back alongside a shelf of funky cans and craft gins.  It's a decent micropub, with some proper seating on benches, friendly folk and a good beer selection.
Cask ales are all dispensed straight from the barrel and on this visit came from Brunswick, Byatts and Phipps NBC, whose retro-looking 'Diamond Ale' was my pick.  This was a tasty amber ale, brewed to an old 18th century recipe and most enjoyable. 

Beer festival, then?
2022 marked the 37th Rugby beer fest, offering 36 beers as well as ciders and several European bottles.
'Foreign Beer List' item number one was Tynt Meadow, from Leicestershire.  Crikey, I know we're a divided nation, but I missed the part when Leicester became foreign.

Beer fest venue

The festival was taking place in Arnold House, a former finishing school for girls, which was subsequently brought by the Masons in 1935.  Somewhere within is a temple, but it's beyond locked doors, sadly preventing tipsy inquisitive CAMRA members wandering into it, slopping beer from their festival glass.
Instead, all the action was in a hall and adjacent bar on the ground floor.  The tables had all been grabbed by the enthusiastic early arrivals, well on their way through ticking the list and scoring the beers.

Those beers came from Warwickshire and surrounding counties, plus a few which had traveled a bit further, with a selection from Liverpool, hometown of the festival organiser.
The Flagship Brewery coffee and orange stout, 'Strobe', was probably the best of my picks, whilst I also enjoyed a Church End 'Rest in Peace'.  The latter was listed in the programme as "our strong beer for the brave or foolish".   Aha - foolish - that'll be me!

On the same day, Blackpool Jane was at Wigan beer festival, providing Wigan with a comprehensive '20 minute read' write-up.  Rugby get the raw deal with my reportage - a couple of hundred words from this amateur drunkard.  But I did enjoy my short visit, this being the first indoor festival that I've attended since March 2020.

Deciding it was time to move on, I navigated back to the railway station and made the 10-minute trip to Coventry.  Where I figured I may as well break my journey and visit the one city centre Beer Guide pub that I hadn't yet been to. 

Town Crier (Corporation Street, Coventry, CV1 1PB)
I've passed this a fair few times and knew it had appeared in the Guide before, but had never set foot inside.
Built in the 80's by Banks's Brewery, this takes up a remarkable amount of city space for a pub, on land that is now probably being coveted by developers to build Coventry's 333rd student hall.

Stepping inside, it's one large open-plan room, with raised areas, low walls and pillars sort of dividing it up and giving it a bit of character.  On the bar was a choice of Tetley's, Pedigree or Hobgoblin.  A pint of the Tetley's 'Orignal Cask' for me - okay, but not a patch on the dark beers I'd be drinking at the beer fest.

Funky lighting, writing on the beams, and a group of ladies who you just know are gonna cause trouble later

Just needed to make sure I didn't get carried away and spend too long with my Tetley and  the poptastic soundtrack and miss the train.

If only there was somewhere I could keep an eye on the time...

Battersea and Wandsworth Pub Crawl

A sunny weekend trip to the capital, in which we venture south of the river and find ourselves in breweries in railway arches alongside some real pubs in Battersea and Wandsworth.

After a long coach journey into London we set off on foot from Victoria to Chelsea Bridge, then across to the Battersea Power Station development.

When I lived in London you could get nowhere near the crumbling remains of Battersea Power Station, the Thames Path diverting you around hoardings which hid a site that nobody quite knew what to do with.
The building was constructed in two phases starting in 1929 and competed in 1955.
At one point it was generating a fifth of the capitals electricity, although in a list of achievements keeping the lights on in the House of Commons is secondary to featuring on the cover of Pink Floyd's 1977 LP 'Animals'.

Many years of head scratching as to what to with the listed building followed its closure in 1983.  Theme parks and a home for Chelsea FC were suggested at various points, although in the end luxury London living is the route they've gone down.
Yours from just £881,000, but you won't want to be messing around with pocket change and will probably just go straight in for the 6-bed, 7-bath, 11th floor apartment at £18 million.
And for that much money you get a brewery tap next door...

Battersea Brewery Tap Room (12-14 Arches Lane, Battersea, SW11 8AB - web)
The railway bridge running alongside the development provides the venue for food and drink outlets and an intriguing small cinema.  And for Battersea Brewery, which opened here in 2018.  As the bar occupies one arch and the brewery another, it's not your typical industrial estate tap room, and feels like quite a smart venue.

There's a run of varied and adventurous keg beers plus two handpumps with everything priced in pint, schooner or half pint measures.  Is a schooner the cool measure to have your mild in now?
I wanted the home-brewed cask ale, but this sputtered out the tap and ran out before filling the dimpled mug.  Not fancying the rugby-themed Hogs Back brew, I had to stick with the Battersea keg, with a respectable stout and a half of the decadent, uber-malty 8.5% scotch ale.

Most of tables were reserved for England later, but the bar was pretty busy for the first Six Nations fixture of the day.  It did take me a while to get served, but I had some sympathy for the staff, pouring the beers and keeping a toasted sandwich production line going.

It was a Six Nations day, which meant the rugby dominated many of the places we visited.  The first match of the day hadn't started in the Battersea Tap Room, but they still felt the need to have the volume on the TV to be turned up to the deafeningly-loud end of the scale to listen to the pre-match build-up.

We moved on to the nearby Mason's Arms pub, although it was frustratingly further than it should have been due to all the closed routes around the new housing developments.
You can't park your car in front of London pubs on busy roads, but there are other ways to scupper the photographic ambitions of pub bloggers...

Mason's Arms (169 Battersea Park Road, Battersea, SW8 4BT - web)
This Fuller's pub has had a refurbishment in 2019, stripping it back to basics with an open-plan layout.  Nice chunky pillars holding the ceiling up and nice floor tiling around the bar. 

Being Fuller's, the cask choice was a familiar 'London Pride', 'ESB' and Dark Star 'Hophead' selection.  But the Hophead was the best beer of the day, perfectly served and eminently drinkable.
That said, I do wish I'd spent a bit more time perusing Tom's Beer Board which listed an impressive choice of craft beers.

Well-fed with Mason's burgers 'n' chips, we made a walk southbound toward Wandsworth Road overground station, with (yet another) brewery tap the target.

Distortion Brewery Tap (647 Portslade Road, Battersea, SW8 3DH - web)
Back in the railway arches again.
This is a relatively new brewery, a little off the beaten track, which was most probably why it was much quieter than anywhere else we'd been.
The bar counter stretches part-way across the middle of the arch, basked in sunshine which was thoroughly dazzling and annoying the staff.  It's a tank bar, with beers being served from the six shiny vessels behind the bar, each with a snazzy electronic display screen.

Distortion gets the usual extra marks for having beer mats.  Immediately deducted for only using them to sit water bottles on and offering them for sale as merchandise along with their t-shirts and tote bags.
It is just possible that I may have stolen the one from our table that the water bottle was sitting on.  Expect that in a small segment of Crimewatch.

We decided to travel a little further for our next destination, hopping aboard a bus to take us down Wandsworth Road.  We were making our way to the one-time site of Young's Brewery and their old brewery tap.

Ram Inn (68 Wandsworth Hight Street, Wandsworth, SW18 4LB - web)
Well, it's pretty impressive isn't it?  Three layered floors stretching around the corner of the road, with a fine chimney taking pride of place above the Ram Pub Co logo.  Behind it are the remaining buildings from Young's Brewery which operated until a move to Bedford in 2006.

When the brewery shut, so did the pub, not re-opening until 2019.
It's home to the Sly Beast microbrewery and as I'm always drawn to shiny brewing kit, we sat by the internal window which looks onto the brew room.

We were perched on some dreadful white leather high stools that seemed out of place, although, according to WhatPub, Punch have taken over the freehold and plan to evict the brewery and jazz the Ram up into more of a nightclub venue.

On cask was a Slybeast 'Beam Engine Bitter' or '4ft2' stout, with kegs serving up SlyBeast lager, IPA and specials.
My bitter was...so-so. Sorry.

Pretty much next-door neighbours of the Ram is Sambrook's Brewery.  They were one of the first of the 21st century wave of small brewers in the capital, originally operating out of an industrial estate until recently relocating into part of the historic Young's site.

Sambrook's Brewery Tap (40 Ram Street, Wandsworth, SW18 1UD - web)
As made blatantly obvious in this post, I'm not a fan of the Six Nations in pubs.  Here there were two floors, packed to the rafters, standing room hard to come by, all attention directed to England on the big screen.  I squeezed in to the bar, made the foolhardy choice of the Imperial Stout, then escaped with it to the peace and quiet of the courtyard.

I suspect I would have been won over by Sambrook's had we actually been able to get in.  Four of their beers on cask alongside the kegs and good looking pizza, in a swanky modern set-up within the historic buildings. 

There was just time to fit in one more pub visit before heading homeward...

Old Sergeant (104 Garratt Lane, Wandsworth, SW18 4DJ)
We arrived here just after the rugby had finished, into a pub full of raucous drunken souls and the occasional bit of bizarre fancy dress. All in all, a chaotic mess.

The Ram Pub Co look after the Old Sergeant, so it was the Slybeast bitter as the sole cask on offer when we visited.  Looking for a change I went for the same breweries' 'Swamp Donkey' keg IPA, which was a decent tipple.

And with that we bade south west London farewell.
A varied bunch of places; beers middling to great; no bargains; much grumpiness about the Six Nations taking over the pubs, and much undocumented grumpiness and frustration about London buses and traffic.

A Spotted Dog, White Swan and an Anchor

Digbeth Part 2 - Proper Pubs

In which we follow up the taprooms with a bit of West Midlands pub heritage around Digbeth way.
It's taken me an awful long time between reporting on the brewery taps and the pubs.  Perhaps I've just been holding off to tie-in with the return of Peaky Blinders to our screens...

Just across the road from the Peaky Blinder mural, sitting on a lonely corner, with some quality foliage on it's frontage, is the Spotted Dog.Spotted Dog (104 Warwick Street, Digbeth, B12 0NH - web)
At it's peak, Digbeth had a thriving Irish community and many of the pubs reflect this.  At the Spotted Dog you'll find Irish flags and bric-a-brac and some choice newspaper clippings about the national rugby team getting the better of their rivals.

Oakham 'Citra', Castle Rock 'Harvest Pale' and a cask cider were available, but I went straight for a pint of the Holden's 'Black Country Mild'.  Mild being on trend and me perpetually trying to be trendy.
A fine pint, supped next to the fire in the quiet side room pictured, accompanied by the unusual pub find of a vegetarian Scotch egg.

There's an outdoor space to the side which would be a winner in warmer weather.  Full of odd decorations...

Is Power Folk a hip new genre?
Can't keep up since they stopped publishing Melody Maker.

And spotted dogs on windows...

Digbeth used to be a thoroughly run-down area which had the ability to petrify unsuspecting long-distance bus travelers who found themselves deposited at the dreary coach station.
Once the most central of Birmingham's industrial regions, the factories gradually closed, the spray paint enthusiasts had a field day, and the area fell into disrepair.  But more recently it's seen a revival with old buildings housing music venues, bars and art spaces.  Plans are afoot for the big old Typhoo Tea factory to be transformed into urban apartments, and I suspect gentrified Digbeth will be unrecognisable in a few years time.  And I'll complain that I liked it better when it was run-down.

Back when the factories were open, workers could take their pick of 20 pubs along Bradford Street.  Now just two remain - both on the itinerary today.

I'm betting if I come back in a few years time this pub will be dwarfed by shiny new buildings on either side of it

White Swan (276 Bradford Street, Digbeth, B12 0QY)
Built at the very end of the 19th century, the White Swan is a West Midlands heritage gem which recently looked like it may be lost forever.  It was in a sorry state with the doors and windows boarded up and graffiti plastered over the red brick facade.
After a 2-year closure, it re-opened in the second half of 2021, overseen and restored to it's former glory by the folks behind the Woodman and Post Office Vaults.

We stepped through the door on the corner into the narrow L-shaped room with an impressive long bar stretching it's length, stools and bench seating lining the walls.  Served quickly, I ordered something from Sheffield with 'Biscuit' in the title, only to be disappointed when it was declared 'off' mid-pour.  I settled for an American Pale Ale from Stourbridge's Green Duck Brewery (other choices were from Fixed Wheel and Ossett).
This was taken through the spectacularly tiled corridor into the quiet lounge behind the bar.

Just a few minutes further down the road was Victorian red-brick and terracotta corner pub number two: the Anchor.

The Anchor (308 Bradford Street, Digbeth, B5 6ET - web)
I first squeezed into a bustling Anchor on my way to St Andrew's on match day and loved it.  Being a good traditional boozer, a little off the beaten track, and a real ale haven, I used to always make a revisit whenever I found myself in Birmingham.  That said, it's been a fair while since I've been here and on this revisit I was a little underwhelmed.
Perhaps initially put off by having to wait while both bar staff were busily concocting cocktails (never a good sign, in my humble opinion).  

Perhaps because there was a shortage of comfy places to sit - the back room was dark and gloomy with some dubious characters in it; the charming little snug to the side closed with stools stacked on top of tables.
But probably just because it's the kind of pub that's much better when it's packed full of punters.

The ales were local - they could probably have rolled the barrels along the pavement from Halton Turner, whose tap room under the Victorian railway viaduct we'd visited earlier.
With a choice of tropical pale or porter, I picked the dark stuff with another pint of the 'Blindspot', in great condition.

The Anchor brought to a close our Saturday afternoon wander around Digbeth, as we drank up and made our way back to Moor Street station for a sensibly early train home.

There are a couple of other good places nearby which we didn't have time for today, but we'll be back - there's still a lot of pub ticking to do in Birmingham.

Digbeth Taproom Duo

In which we make our way to Birmingham to explore the bars and pubs of the Digbeth area. 
I've ended up with too many pictures, so this day's shenanigans are split into an Extended Post: the A-side has the graffiti, craft beer and hipster brewery taps; the B-side has the proper pubs.

Despite the best laid plans we didn't actually start our Digbeth explorations in Digbeth.  Stepping out of Moor Street station it had turned bitterly cold and was pouring rain.  Particularly wet rain.
We hopped from one bit of shelter to the next until we spotted an A-board which offered an early alternative to loitering in shopping centres.

TILT, on the corner of the City Arcade

Tilt (2 City Arcade, Birmingham, B2 4TX - web)
At 11:30am the windows were steamed up and there was a decent early crowd in, either sipping their artisan coffee or quaffing the craft beers.

We got the last table (that didn't involve being banished to the basement) and ordered our own crafty murk and flat whites.
Great beer menu, but what is that - font size 6?
My eyesight isn't what it used to be, but at least it's still good enough to spot the prices and stop short of ordering a pint of the double peach Gose at £22.50.

Instead I ended up with the sensible strength and sensible price of a Triple Point Brewing 'Pint of Sheffield', a nice tropical haze of a beer to start the day with.

Interestingly, WhatPub says "Some beers served from key keg and therefore may be considered real ale, ask the staff or see the beer info clipboards to determine which."
That'll surely ruffle the feathers of a few CAMRA folk.

Tilt gets its name from the collection of pinball machines, with a run of 8 just around the corner from the bar and a few more downstairs.  I didn't part with my pound coins as I've come to realise I'm quite hopeless at pinball.

As the rain stopped, we left Tilt and walked away from the centre, looping past the Woodman pub and HS2 works, under railway bridges into the heart of Digbeth.
This was the scenic route.

One of your windows is broken

Strolling through some quiet streets, we headed under the grand railway viaduct which our train had passed over earlier. Modern brewery taps aren't always in the most obvious or best marked places...

Under the bridge?..

Through here??

In there???

In hindsight, the door propped open with a beer barrel is obviously the way in, but it didn't seem obvious at the time.  Poking our heads in revealed an anonymous makeshift white plastic porch with sliding door.
Beyond this was the brewery tap, with it's bar, brewing kit and bench seating - revelry in full swing. 

Halton Turner Tap Room (Rea Court, 40 Trent Street, Digbeth, B5 5NL - web)
Well, perhaps not quite in full swing -  the clientele consisted of two Aston Villa fans with their burgers and beers.
The beer list looked great though, with a wide selection advertised on a digital screen on the back of the bar, both their own brews and a few local guests.  The bar had three hand pumps with just the one in action on this visit, serving up a nice quaffable 'Blindside' porter.
As we were ordering a bite to eat, I threw early caution to the wind and also grabbed a half of the 9.2% imperial stout 'Nativity in Black'.

Shame to visit when it was so quiet, but I guess the rotten weather and early hour didn't help.  A good brewery bar with extra marks scored for having beer mats!

Moving on, we made our way to another brewery tap which was close by.
Another rather anonymous entrance...

At least this time there's a "This Way" A-board, next to a random pile of logs and discarded Christmas tree

Dig Brew (43 River Street, Digbeth, B5 5SA - web)
Unusually, I felt, for a brewery tap we were confronted by a 'please wait to be seated' welcome desk and went through the "have you got a reservation?", "no, are we okay just for a quick drink?" routine.
Looks like this place gets fairly busy at times.

German beer fest style benches stretch down amongst the shiny brewing kit, but for now just the small square front room was being used.

We ordered the one cask ale - a strong and tasty winter warmer, and a superbly coconutty black IPA, 'Enter the Void', which was a collaboration brew with Walthamstowe's Exale.

I was a bit put off by the table service, but our beers were great, with the rest of the list offering up lots of interesting options to tempt us to stay longer.  Dig Brew do some very cool art work on the cans and literature too.

They have a 'Say Doom and Die' event this coming weekend with "weird and wonderful beers that have been loitering in the barrel vaults", including 10 imperial stouts and 2 barley wines.
Oooh - can we come back?  A trip to Birmingham for 10 imperial stouts - what could possibly go wrong?

Yes!  Another shiny brewing equipment picture!

We'd done the craft bar and two brewery taps.
Right! Time to find a proper pub!