Coventry Pub Explorations

An award-winning canal-side pub, a brewery bar, the cities oldest hostelry and some interesting looking city centre pubs together made up today's itinerary.
For me, Coventry is just 45-minutes away by train, but somewhere I've found myself infrequently.
So we set out to explore...

Lady Godiva helps lower the taxes.

Firstly, a trip through suburban Cov, to get to the furthest pub.  We took a bus up to Aldermans Green, then walked up Grange Road as it passed under the M6.  The pub sign, blowin' in the wind, confirmed that we were headed in the right direction.  

This way >

The Greyhound Inn is located a further five minutes down the canal path, at Hawkesbury Junction where the Oxford Canal meets the Coventry Canal.

The Greyhound Inn (Sutton Stop, Longford, CV6 6DF - web)
This striking, white-fronted pub has a pretty superb setting, where the outdoor tables facing the canal basin would be a prime spot in warmer weather.  The Inn dates back to the 1830's, when it would have been more picturesque without the towering electricity pylon behind it.

Dominant Pylon.

The streets were quiet and we didn't see a soul on the towpath, so it was a surprise to open the pub door and find it full of folk.
How Wasps were doing in the rugby and how we'd avoided the worst of Storm Jorge seemed to be favoured conversation topics, whilst at least half the customers seemed to have brought their dogs on a trip out to the pub.

Real fires, proper pub seating, chip butties for £3.50, and Draught Bass.
What more could you ask for?

A trek back along the canal seemed a good idea to walk-off any chip butty guilt.  But it'd definitely be nicer in the summertime.  Today it was wet and muddy, with the stormy winds giving us a thoroughly wintry pummeling.
But we persevered into the Foleshill area, finding our way to a quiet and dull-looking industrial estate where there happened to be a brewery bar.

Byatt's Brewhouse Bar (Units 7-8, Lythalls Lane Industrial Estate, Foleshill, CV6 6FL - web)

I was kinda hoping that Byatt's would be one of those taprooms where we were sat among'st the brewing kit, but instead it's a self-contained bar, with the brewery hidden somewhere behind a locked door.
The downstairs bar consists of a couple of high tables, a large leather sofa and a TV in the corner showing the news channel - all doom and gloom, of course.

The bar features six of Byatt's cask ales, from which I picked an 'All Day Foreign Extra Stout', followed by the 'XK Dark'.  Both decent beers in the fine condition you'd expect a few meters from the brewing kit.

They did seem to like their comedic notices and pictures at Byatt's.  Unfortunately, having a 'Beer - Helping ugly people have sex since 1862' sign leads to a 0.5 point deduction on the PropUptheBar pub scoring system.
I was much more appreciative of the picture below, showing happier days for the Sky Blues...

Moving on quickly - before anyone can point out that my own football team's glory days are equally historic - we caught a bus from the main road back to the city center, where we had a couple more Good Beer Guide entries to visit. Starting with this one...

Town Wall Tavern (Bond Street, Coventry, CV1 4AH )

Tucked down a side-street behind the Belgrade Theatre, the Town Wall Tavern is a great-looking traditional pub.

Between the Bar and the Lounge entrances, there's another door marked 'Donkey Box', so named because this snug is just large enough for a donkey.
We settled on window-side stools in the bustling bar, with a Robinson's 'Dizzy Twisted Sister', looking out across the road at the dull block of student accommodation.   It seemed to me that every other building we'd passed after getting off the bus had been student accommodation.

Three pubs in.
About the time I begin to spy things like pedestrian footbridges and fancy my artistic photography skills...

Next to the footbridge was our next pub:

The Gatehouse Tavern (44-46 Hill Street, Coventry, CV1 4AN - web)
The gatehouse is the one remaining bit of what was once the North Warwickshire Weaving and Spinning, Worsted and Woollen Mill, which closed in 1963.
Landlord Martin McKeown previously ran the Town Wall Tavern, before overseeing the conversion of this run-down building into a pub that's been a Coventry mainstay in the Good Beer Guide.

And what a cracker it was!
It consists of one rectangular, traditional pub room, with seating round the sides and a plethora of TVs for live sport.  I would've grumbled profusely were it not a weekend-off for the Six Nations.
The seven hand-pulls along the bar served up a fine selection, including another opportunity for Draught Bass.  But, turning it down this time, I opted for the one with the stand-out pump-clip. 

Picking the beer you've never heard of.

This was probably my personal pick of the pubs today - I thought the Gatehouse had a great feel to it and fine selection of ales to choose from.
Next up, and less than five minutes way...

The Old Windmill (22-23 Spon Street, Coventry, CV1 3BA)
In a 15th century building, this is possibly Coventry's oldest pub and was packed full of character.  It had all the necessary quirks of a historic boozer - low ceilings, uneven floors, wooden beams, and multiple little rooms and hideaways.
Sadly not the best choice of beers of the day, and I wasn't blown away by my North Cotswold Brewery 'Fosseway Flanker', a 3.8% ABV pale ale. 

And as so often seems to be the way, we ended up in Wetherspoon's...

The Flying Standard (2-10 Trinity Street, Coventry, CV1 1FL - web)
I'd snapped a photo of this picturesque 'Spoon's outlet earlier in the day, little suspecting we'd end up in there later.
It's a sprawling, multi-roomed place, on several different levels, with two bars.
Two CAMRA vouchers = 2 pints for a ridiculously cheap £3.30.  Pity I have such a bad habit of forgetting to put my vouchers in my wallet when we're going out..

Coventry had provided a decent day out, and I'm surprised I've never found myself in any of these central pubs before.  I'll be back to tick off Twisted Barrel and the pubs to the west of the city on a future visit.