West Brom Wanderings

I picked the most dull, grey and miserable day to make a trip to the West Midlands. 
Then picked a some dull, grey and miserable bits of the urban sprawl to visit.

My first point of call would be Perry Barr.  
I've never been able to muster the enthusiasm at the end of a day to make the short hop from Birmingham New Street to Perry Barr 'Spoons.  So, I decided to do it first on this occasion to claim this beer guide tick.
A 20-minute bus ride took me up the A34, past the sadly shuttered Barton Arms, and onto the One Stop Shopping centre. 
On the front of this is The Arthur Robertson - not one of the chain's most photogenic locations.

The Arthur Robertson (51-53 One Stop Retail Park, Walsall Road, Perry Barr, B42 1AA)
But step inside and the Arthur Robertson has a bit of character and a decent number of pre-noon punters.  Probably helped by the fact that there are a fair few closed pubs in the vicinity, the nearest pint of cask ale being 0.7 miles away in pubs that don't seem particularly enticing.

This 'Spoons is named after local athletics club Birchfield Harriers' first Olympian and medal winner.
It's populated by non-athletic-looking folk (myself included), spread over several areas divided by large bookshelves and partition walls adorned with old pictures.
Here's the cask range...

Service without a smile and a bit of a disparaging look when I tried to order the Froth Blowers which had finished. Turn the pump clip around!
I settled on a Fixed Wheel 'The Art of Van', an oddly named 4.4% super fruity and chewy IPA.

Then checked out the fairly trad carpet...

...and the Aston Villa display, complete with digital countdown...

Possibly counting down the number of days until it became unrealistic to talk about Villa as 2025/26 title contenders.

As mentioned before, Perry Barr is short on cask ale and general pubbage.
It's even more barren heading westward as I was - 3.3 miles through Hounslow with not even a drop of Doom Bar to drink.
I wasn't stopping at the first available pub, instead taking a roundabout route into the northern West Brom 'burbs to the Red Lion...

The Red Lion (190 All Saints Way, West Bromwich, B71 1RH)
This is prime desi pub territory, where the old sprawling roadside hostelries have been repurposed as eating spots with public bars and cricket on TV.
The drinker's room is the small front bar, although most of the traditional features have been zapped out of it in a smart refurb. 
I stuck in the back dining room, an extension leading to a large covered patio area.  Booth seating around the sides, 20-20 from Colombo on giant HD screens which you're never more than a couple of meters away from.

Thumbs-up for the Red Lion - not just for the superb model lions in front, but also for serving real ale: Sharps 'Twin Coast' or Wye Valley 'Butty Bach'.  A West Midlands fave Butty Bach for me, presented in good condition.  Accompanied by a paneer Balti that didn't look much portion-wise but successfully filled me up.

Time to walk off some of those calories with a fairly long trek down Heath Lane - a straight line on one road which changed names several times as it weaved through different eras of housing estates, before becoming Witton Lane, home to my next pub.

Three Horseshoes (86 Witton Lane, West Bromwich, B71 2AQ)
This was the obligatory Black Country Ales pub on a West Midlands day out.  They took over and refurbished the Horseshoes in 2016, lining the bar with hand pumps, upholstering the seating with tartan, and hanging old pictures of the local area on busily beige wallpapered walls.

Too many ale choices for me to contemplate when the bar staff were poised to pour my pint as soon as I arrived at the bar.  So I selected the Bosun's Brew Co 'Castaway', thinking it was a new brewery for me, before Untappd smugly confirmed I'd had the exact same beer before.  I'll never succeed as a beer ticker.

The 20-20 cricket continued on the TV, accompanied with the 8 minutes 57 seconds of November Rain as I sat down and sipped a perfectly enjoyable pint.

On the walk to the Three Horseshoes I'd passed a large grey estate pub which I figured was worth poking my head into.
Picture hampered by clouds as grey as the building and too many parked cars.

The Gough Arms (Jowetts Lane, West Bromwich, B71 2QR)
Crikey...they made pubs big once, didn't they?
This is a sprawling open-plan place with various distinct areas - the loungy bit, the pool table to one side, a big horseshoe bar looping around to face both front and back spaces.  I ordered the sole cask, a quite acceptable pint of Banks's 'Amber' at a very respectable price.

There was some community stuff underway in a raised area up involving piles of clothes and fabrics followed by fish and chip lunches for a group of older ladies, one of whom scowled at me an awful lot.
This looks to be a great community pub, advertising meal deals, bingo, music, and indoor car boot sales.  Long may it last.

Leaving the Gough Arms, there was some big back-tracking on myself to reach the Royal Oak - close to my lunchtime curry in the Red Lion, but not open at the time I'd been nearby.  I hopped aboard a random eastbound bus which saved some of the walk, then made the final trek into the side streets just as the rain started.

The Royal Oak (14 Newton St, West Bromwich, B71 3RQ)
Stepping in, there wasn't a soul in sight: the TV's on, the lights off.
It took an age for the someone to arrive and serve me a pint of 'HPA' (other options being 'Butty Bach' and 'Proper Job').

It's a lovely little two-roomed pub, made cosy with the bench seating around the sides of the rooms and proper pub furniture.  Nice cushioned bar too...

If the lights had been off prior to my arrival to save on electrics, the TVs in each bar could have been unplugged too.  A replay of Birmingham Ladies vs Crystal Palace with no-one to watch it really was pub telly for the sake of it.
A local arrived shortly after I'd sat down, so I didn't remain entirely by myself.
And despite it possibly being the first pint served on the day, the Wye Valley 'HPA' was great.

Out into the increasing gloom and drizzle, and quickly onto bus number 74 to the centre of West Bromwich.
I feel a little bit guilty that I wasn't intrepid enough to explore the busy hub of West Brom itself.  But the chaos of school home-time at the bus station and the dreich day made me just want to move on and claim my last Good Beer Guide tick in the area, a couple of miles up the road.

The Rising Sun (116 Horseley Road, Tipton, DY4 7NH)
Back in 1999 this was crowned CAMRA National Pub of the Year, although I suspect it's changed a bit since then.  The Victorian hostelry was taken on by Black Country Ales in 2013, so provided the common sight of lots of hand pumps and a deli counter full of cobs.
For a change (on my pub visits), it was full of customers - not a seat to be had in the busy main bar.  So I've failed miserably to get a decent pic outside or in.
It's not really somewhere I'm likely to be passing any time soon for a return visit to put that right. 
No, not even for the seance night...

But I was pleased to tick off another BCA pub, content with my cheese and onion cob (posh packaging!) and pint of Small World 'Winter Bank'.

It took much longer than expected to travel back to West Brom on the slow-moving traffic-clogged Black Country New Road.  Having had enough of buses, I jumped on the tram back to Brum.  All of which wore me out and indicated it was time to head home.
Although perhaps there was still time for this...

 

Cheers! 🍻