Hoppiness on the way to Łódź

The first part of our July '25 trip to Poland was a stay in the central city of Łódź.  Somewhere which would provide me with a lots of pictures of repurposed red-brick factories, an evening of heavy metal, pizzas, street art, and craft beer emporiums.

But first, an unexpected 90-minutes in Warsaw: our transfer from the airport not coinciding well with onward trains.
After several visits to the capital, this is the first time I've managed to get a blue-sky picture of the cities most iconic building/horrendous monstrosity (opinions differ).

We took the photo, crossed the road, veered through the passge in the shopping centre (exotic shops including H&M and TK Maxx), then down Chmielna, a leafy street lined with cafes, bakeries, and restaurants.
Our craft beer destination - a handy 6-minute trek from the central station - was Hoppiness...

Hoppiness Beer & Food (Chmielna 27/31, lok. 76, 00-932 Warszawa)
The beer board behind the bar listed 12 choices.  Ranging from ones you recognise (Lindemans Kriek) to the more obscure (Funky Fluid Ice Cream Sour - Mrs PropUptheBar's choice, of course).
I stuck with a sensible 4.4% 'modern bitter' from Browar Harpagan called 'Bitterpunk'.  22 złoty being around £4.50 for a half litre.
We stayed inside in this comfy modern bar, whilst the shaded terrace in front was proving the most popular spot for the international punters on this hot and sunny afternoon.

A good start - the first beers tasting marvellous after planes, trains and automobiles and a 3.30am wake-up call.

We had a 75-mile trip SW of Warsaw to reach Łódź.
On a train with a mind-boggling seat numbering system (the kind where seat 75 is next to seat 81 and nowhere near 74).  For reasons unknown the ticket office staff informed us we couldn't sit together and reserved seats in different carriages, despite the train ending up no more than half full.
This was in danger of making Cross Country Trains seat reservation systems look competent 😱.

We got there in one piece, arriving in Łódź's spectacular Fabryczna station.

From wheere we set off on foot to find our hotel.
Łódź city centre is big - that 20-minute walk only covered a couple of centimeters on our handy In Your Pocket city map.  You'll get your steps in when visiting Łódź.

We arrived on a Saturday night, so I could worry about culture, sightseeing and pronouncing the city name correctly tomorrow.
Local beer, please!

Browar Księży Młyn (Tymienieckiego 22/24, 90-349 Łódź)
This brew pub is a couple of km from the acely named 'unicorn stable' tramstop by our base in the city.  Translating as 'priest's mill', the brewery is part of the huge early 19th century textile factory complex which has undergone a modern makeover. 

The front door led to a relatively small room featuring the brewing coppers, bar counter and a handful of tables.  Somewhere beyond are more indoor spaces and a big hall catering for events, but we opted for the cool courtyard on a fine evening.

Five of their home-brewed beers on the menu, if I remember correctly.  A menu made more comlicated by including all the seasonal specials and an 'ask your server what's available' instruction.  Probably not the autumn pumpkin ale or winter warmer.
I started with a 'Dziewiarsjie' 7.4% cold IPA which disappeared from the glass alarmingly quickly.  Then followed it with the superior (in my own humble opinion) 'Zakladowe' IPA, brewed with Belgian yeast and Munich malts. 

Poland is more about multi-tap craft bars than brewpubs these days, so I'll take the opportunity whilst I have it to include a shiny brewing equipment picture...

Suitably fed and IPA'd, we hopped aboard a bus which took us back to Piotrkowska Street, the lenghthy high street where all the action is.
Just to one side of the southern end of the pedestrianised part of Piotrkowska is OFF.  Another cotton mill, this one operating until 1990 and converted in more recent years to an entertainment hub.

Lots going on here - a bistro in stacked old shipping containers, artisan coffee, stylish restaurants, cool kids lounging on bean bags with cocktails, DJs spinning records, pink flamingos...

So what type of uncultured soul would wander past all these options and end up in the football pub?  Ah, that'd be me.

Football Pub (OFF, Franklina Delano Roosevelta 12b, 90-062 Łódź)
Okay, it may not be the trendy place to drink in the complex, but I rather liked the tiny football bar.  Reminiscent of many similar places throughout the continent, with just a handful of tables inside, football pictures, football lampshades, and club scarves galore.

Any scarves from decent teams amongst that lot?
Ah yes...

No, not 'erby C'.
"Are you from Nottingham?" asked the owner behind the bar, impressively before we'd gone searching for the Forest scarf.
"I'm good with accents," he insisted, but surely not that good - I've lived in a lot of places since a Notts childhood.
He was a nice chap and he came from behind the bar to point out which one was him in the Widzew team photo on the wall.

The Football Pub is - perhaps not surprisingly - not a craft beer hotspot.  From the trio of lagers on the bar, we grabbed a half litre of the Brackie Žatecký Pils, part of the Zywiec empire.

And took this to the outside table where we could observe the buzz of Saturday night activity in OFF from a safe distance before retired to the hotel for a much-needed good nights sleep.

Up next...
Pictures that make Łódź look appealing.  Crazy craft beer.  Rob Halford.

Blackheath Bound

Thursday, mid-morning.  Stubborn clouds lurking to defy the sunny weather forecast.  I was on a bus somewhere in the lesser explored regions to the west of Birmingham.  Just don't ask me where exactly.
Google directing me onto a number 4 bus, then insisted I'd reached my Blackheath destination when we pulled up next to The Bear in Bearwood.  Only about 4-miles off target, Google.

I realised it wasn't going to Blackheath but stuck with the No.4 anyway.  Almost as good as an open top sightseeing bus - as long as you're happy without an open top and content that the sights are the estates of Langley Green.
It eventually deposited me in Oldbury, where a quick check for anything worthy pub-wise brought up a heritage inn.

Waggon & Horses (17A Church Street, Oldbury, B69 3AD)
The gloriously red-bricked 'proper'-looking Waggon & Horses is situated right next door to Wetherspoons, which possibly hasn't helped a few turbulent open-shut years.  They've risen to the Spoons challenge by unbolting the doors early in the day and advertising some ridiculously cheap pints on the blackboard out-front.
The basic main bar with well-trodden wooden floor boards and trad furniture was fairly busy with scruffy tradesmen and scruffy blokes.  I fit in well.

I was fully anticipating keg only, so was chuffed to see the cask Enville Ale.  My notes say "passable but ropey", although at £2.15 a pint I wasn't about to grumble.
£2.15!
A big TV in the corner pumped out the Pet Shop Boys 'What Have I Done to Deserve This' on a music video channel with extended adverts for foot massagers every couple of songs.
I perched in the corner for a while before pondering if I was missing the heritage features.  What's in the rear smoke room?

Ah, that's more like it.
Okay, I had sit on my own in silence, but what a great room.  The TV above the fireplace spoils the effect a little, but the bench seating was superb, old bell pushes still visible from the days that someone would have come to serve you at your seat.
There's a nice bit of pub tiling in the corridor too...

Although the WCs, down dark corridors at the far end of the pub were definitely not 'heritage' and not for the faint hearted.

I figured I may as well pop into Spoons whilst right next door.

The Court of Requests (Church Street, Oldbury, B69 3AF)
This Grade II listed building was originally a jail and courtroom.  Somewhere behind locked doors and beyond the three areas of seating that make up the pub are original cells still in good condition.
The staff probably wish they could pop the odd customer in them, starting with the chap who was keen for an extended debate about why breakfast service had stopped at midday.

Beers from Conwy or Batemans complemented the usual cask suspects at Spoons.  I opted for a £1 half of the Batemans 'XXXB', an EPA that I haven't had for years and which went down a treat.

Right...that was two pubs and a pint-and-a-half that I wasn't expecting.  Where was I trying to get to again?
Blackheath - just a short hop southbound on another bus.  My destination turned out to be a bit chaotic, a confusion of diverted traffic and roadworks which were transforming central Blackheath (...into a hub of excitement and charming buildings? Possibly not). 
For the time being I passed straight through and headed south to Shell Corner.

And my next pub...

The Swan (282 Long Lane, Halesowen, B62 9JY)
Located in a residential area betwixt Blackheath and Halesowen, this is a pub that was saved from bulldozers in 2014 by local campaigners.  Paving the way for the Black Country Ales makeover.
It's an open-plan pub with a dog-leg shape generating two distinct areas either side of the bar in the middle.
I procured a cheese and onion cob and a half of 'Maybug' from local brewery Kinver.  A top-fermented German style lager apparently, which may not have been my first choice had it said that on the pump clip but it actually proved a winner to wash down the cob.

Because - strewth - that onion was strong!
Although I snapped a picture of the empty room, there was a procession of locals wandering in and all tables around me ended up occupied in a short space of time.  All ordering their own cobs (and black pudding sides); none phased by the onion, so it was just me with my eyes watering.

Departing from the Swan, I had a trek through residential estates to reach a second Wetherspoons of the day, this one a Beer Guide regular.
It's a bit of a rarity in the JDW chain as it was actually built as a pub in the 1950's rather than being converted from something else.

The Britannia (124 Halesowen Street, Blackheath, B65 0ES)
That said, for all the traditional feel to the outside, it's a typical Spoons within - vastly extended to the back and side to create a large open plan room of regimented tables.  And I bet the original pub had toilets that didn't require a trek up to the first floor!

There was a good selection of cask on offer, including locals from Fixed Wheel or Byatts.  But the one that jumped out at me was the Burton Bridge 'Masterpiece' - always love these recreations of historic recipes.

Back in the centre of Blackheath there is a bar that may or may not constitute a Good Beer Guide tick - I was confused.
Cyder & Cob is listed in the 2025 guide, but now appears as permanently closed on Google.  That appears to have shifted a couple of miles south to Halesowen and converged with the Shell-ter micro bar.
But there is still beer to be drunk in the original Cyder & Cob address...

Artisan Micro Bar (167 Halesowen Street, Blackheath, B65 0ES)
The original site of Cyder & Cob was taken over in January '25 by the folks from the coffee shop next door.  The coffee shop which I've managed to photograph from the street instead of the bit that's the bar.
This was a typical modern micro made up of one rectangular room and a half dozen high tables and vertiginous seating.
Music from Madness, the Beatles, and Sting.
Beers from Black Iris, Hobsons, Rowton and Bluntrock breweries.  A robust Rowton 'Equinox Porter' from Shropshire for me.

It was a half mile walk directly west to get to my next destination - another Black Country Ales establishment.

The Old Bush Revived (44 Powke Lane, Blackheath, B65 0AD)
This was formerly a Marston's pub before being taken over by BCA in December 2022 and becoming number 46 in the chain.
At number 46 they're still diligently sticking to the tried and tested formula - horticulturally patterned sepia wallpaper, busy carpet, dark wood, tartan fabric on the bench seating.
And a screen above the fireplace listing the beers, from which I picked a Front Row 'Red Roses'.

I opted to top-up with another cob.
"They're crusty and chewy", warned the landlord.
They're burnt, aren't they?
Apparently the last bunch had been really pale and he'd asked for the next delivery to be given extra time in the oven.  Well, someone's taken that on board.

So I chewed my extremely well-done, very crusty cob ("we'll be offering jaw massages tomorrow for anyone who's had one") with a bit of Springsteen, Gerry Rafferty, and Yahoo as background music.

The Old Bush had obviously been pre-warned of a sweaty pub ticker en-route and had prepared the bathrooms accordingly.

Whilst in this neck of the woods I decided to squeeze in a half-pint in Rowley Regis, being at it was only a short walk to another Beer Guide entry...

Britannia Pub & Brewery (18 Rowley Village, Rowley Regis, B65 9AT)
Possibly one pub too many on a hot 'n' sticky afternoon...my beer guide is bigger than my belly, or something like that.
I'm sure I would have done better to visit on a Saturday with a crowd of folk rather than on a midweek afternoon when I almost had the place to myself.
The Britannia also appears to be more pub than brewery, despite the name.  There is a suggestion online that you'll find house beers from Fownd, but not on this occasion.  That's not to say the Wye Valley duo of Butty and HPA, Titanic 'Plum Porter', Ludlow ESB, and a Green Duck pale didn't make for a solid cask line-up.

And so this post ends, with a decent Green Duck 'ᴙevolution' ensuring the use of a new special character on the blog.
Lesser-heard pub music from Chacka Chan.
And the realisation that it takes a long time to get back to civilisation from Rowley Regis on public transport.

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.