Oswestry & the Pub of the Year

An excursion to the Shropshire border to visit the current reigning CAMRA Pub of the Year, the Bailey Head in Oswestry.
I do like the POTY competition and had been following the shortlisting from 17 regional nominees to 4 finalists, determined I'd visit the eventual winner.
Of course, it'd be a little bit handier for me if The Bell in Aldworth just won every year, but I relished this chance to visit somewhere new.

From my Shrewsbury base I hopped aboard the 11am X5 bus, scheduled to arrive just in time for the pub doors  opening.
Straight to the square, guild hall on one side, pub on t'other.

 
And I'm going in...

Bailey Head (Oswestry, SY11 1PZ)
The Bailey Head is an open-plan pub with several distinct cosy areas, nicely decorated with a lived-in feel.
Ales on the bar came from Brew York, Ossett, Two By Two, Big Trip and local brewer Stonehouse.  That's a pretty hip and crafty cask selection, although I went for the most pedestrian of the lot with the local 'Station Bitter'.
It's probably for the best that I didn't spot the cider list before sitting down with my pint. Oh, and plenty of appealing keg options too.

 

Being here early doors meant I got to have a good nosey around whilst it was quiet - just a couple of locals with shopping bags, a dog walker, and a few punters on the benches out front in the fine weather.
So, what makes it pub of the year.
Pump clips stuck on the ceiling and old AC/DC posters, of course.

It really is a super welcoming and friendly pub to settle in - and I wish it was just around the corner from my house.

I perhaps should have spent the afternoon in one place. But I'm not very good at that.
Oswestry looked fine in the sunshine, 'bustling' on this Friday afternoon. It's home to around 17,500 folks and an impressive roster of associated famous people, including Ian's Woosman and Hunter, of golfing success and Mott the Hoople respectively.
And this English town is home to regular Welsh football league title winners and Champions League contenders The New Saints, meaning there should really have been a better collection of obscure stickers on lampposts and pub cisterns that there actually was.
 
I don't like missing a Wetherspoon's, even if this one wasn't one of the prettiest in the chain.
So that's where I headed next...

The Wilfred Owen (17 Willow Street, Oswestry, SY11 1AF)
The building was originally a Royal Mail sorting office, prior to regenerating into Spoons in 2003.
It's named after famous war poet Wilfred Owen, who was born just outside Oswestry in 1893 and almost certainly hoped that his poetry would remind all of the realities of war and that we'd be able to get a pizza and pint deal in a pub named after him.

This was very much of the 'haven't I been here before' Spoons variety. The one-long-room type with regimented tables, bar along one side, toilets upstairs through a succession of doors, and an industrial ceiling.

But it did everything I wanted it to do, providing some food and a Swannay 'Chance Your Arm' guest ale, on good form.
My dilemma next was whether to visit one of the town's previous beer guide entries, or the one that looked most likely to join the Bailey Head in the guide next year, or somewhere with one of those little heritage symbols.

Oak Inn (47 Church Street, Oswestry, SY11 2SZ)
The heritage option won - the Oak Inn being an early 18th century building that was formerly  the coach house of the hotel next door.
Look!...Heritage gaming...

There was a pick of four ales, two from Castle Rock, 'Butty Bach' or Weetwood.  I ordered the Weetwood 'Best' from neighbouring Cheshire, a decent brown bitter.
The Oak Inn has separate front and back rooms connected by a short passage beside the bar. Basic in the front, with leather cushioned bench seating; a bit plusher and redder in the back room, where the TV screen dominated and most of the local crowd had gravitated.
I settled in the front, the chaps to the side discussing who was on holiday where and what vacation horrors had befallen them.

Moving on from the town centre I wanted to make it out to the village of Weston on the southern fringe of Oswestry.  Being a fool I only looked at the road route that Google was directing me on, whereas a glimpse at the Ordnance Survey would have shown me I could follow the Wat's Dyke Way.

I'm really quite bitter about not checking - the trek for a mile-and-a-bit along a busy road through an industrial estate was one for the crap walks to pubs collection.

The final 5-minutes was along a lane with no footpath, until crossing a railway bridge and being welcomed by a brewery sign.
So was it worth it?
Well, as far as beer gardens go, this is a bit of winner...

Stonehouse Brewery and Distillery (Weston Road, Weston, SY10 9ES)
Stonehouse were established in 2007, developing a 22-barrel plant and opening the visitor bar in 2013. It's a thoroughly modern shed, with several seating areas and lots of reserved signs on the tables.
From the three cask ales available I picked the 'Aoraki', Nelson Sauvin hopped pale in the breweries NZ hop series.

I stayed inside to drink this until the predominance of shorts reminded me the weather was lovely and I should really be in outside.

So I took a half of the 'Dark Force' keg porter to a picnic bench amongst the cider apple orchard.
Stopping en-route to get April's shiny brewing equipment picture...

Still ignorant of the footpath route I retraced my steps on a long trudge back to Oswestry, checked the bus times and figured I could probably squeeze a half pint in back at the Bailey Head.

And this time I didn't miss the cider list, procuring a potent Rosies Triple-D 'Wicked Wasp', concocted not too far away in Llandegla, just outside Wrexham.

So, that's Pub of the Year done.  What about the Club of the Year?

Award Winning Pubs in St Helens

A few hours of a Saturday afternoon spent in the Merseyside town of St Helen's, where I had a plan to visit all the current beer guide entries - something which turned out to be less of a challenge than expected.

But let's start my report from St Helen's in...erm...the western suburbs of Wigan with a pint of Holts in a heritage pub.

The Springfield Hotel (47 Springfield Road, Wigan, WN6 7BB)
The pub was built in 1903 for the local Oldfield Brewery.  A great example of a brewery showing-off at the turn of the century, it features etched windows, dado tiles and mahogany bar counter.
We headed through the main door into a wide lobby with bar counter on our right, lounge to the left.  The spacious bar occupies a central position from which the staff can serve you in the busier front room where the early Premier League kick-off was showing on TV, the lobby, or a rear corridor in front of an unfussy back room.

Holt's Bitter please.

Sanitiser top?

£8.85 for three pints - cripes, we'd paid almost that for one pint of Adnams in one of London's more expensive inns a few weeks prior to this.
That Adnam's 'Old Ale' was admittedly pretty good, but then so was the Holt's... 

 

The Springfield was every bit the community pub on our visit, with a succession of folks passing through with carrier bags, face-painting setting up in the lounge and a table of cakes appearing next to the games room.  All the activity and youngsters scuppered a wander with the camera, but I was content in our little space in the back, surrounded by pictures of Wigan in times gone-by.
We figured we'd upset an elderly lady by sitting at her usual table, but she must have forgiven us and got chatting to us as we stuck around and procured halves of the keg Holts 'Black' dark mild.

Having enjoyed a pleasant visit to this suburban Wigan gem, we walked back to the centre where there was time for another pint of Bass in the Swan & Railway prior to me diverting from the rest of the group.
Twenty-minutes on a Liverpool-bound train took me to St Helens.

The logical first point of call was directly opposite the Central Station, 2025 Good Beer Guide entry the Royal Alfred:  "A large traditional pub with a friendly welcome".

Or perhaps not...

Yep, the Royal Alfred has the red 'temporarily closed' strip on its Google listing.
Quite how temporary, I'm not sure. Looks like it closed in its current incarnation in 2024 before the Guide hit the shelves.

So instead, I skirted around the north of the town centre, pausing to admire the Queen Vic statue and snap a picture of the town hall.

I navigated a busy roundabout named The Landings, then walked up North Road past the spectacular Church of St Mary, veering into the side streets to reach what was now my first pub stop.
Any disappointment that the Royal Alfred was closed was reduced by the knowledge that I had a Regional Pub of the Year and a former National Pub of the Year to visit.
Starting with the current regional champ...

The Turks Head (49 Morley Street, St Helens, WA10 2DQ)
It looked the business from outside: hanging baskets, mock Tudor, Tetley lamps and its own little turret in the corner. The entrance is along the side presenting a choice of turning left or right, although it turns out you can circumnavigate once inside, so no real jeopardy.

There were a massive 14 hand pulls spread over two sections of the bar.
Too many?  I've known beer festivals to have less to pick from. 
I ordered the one closest to me - a 'Pacific Gem' single-hopped pale from Rochdale's Serious Brewing Company.  A dry, biscuity pale in good condition. 

I couldn't fault the enthusiasm the bar staff had for the ale.  A couple who proffered their liking for dark ales were encouraging to drink the Vanilla Stout faster in order for the fantastic North Riding 'Chocolate Fudge Cake', waiting in the cellar, to be put on faster. 

With no tables spare I ended up propped on a stool at the end of the bar, getting in the way of anyone trying to see the beer blackboard.

The Turks Head is the winner of the 2024 Merseyside and Cheshire Pub of the Year, making it one of the 17 that was in contention for National POTY.
It certainly had a cheerful crowd of beer drinkers in when I visited, settled within sight of the TV in the front bar or eating in the cosier back room from a proper pub grub menu.  You can also place an order for food to be brought across the road from the Cowley Grill, attached to the Cowley Vaults pub, which is where I was heading next...

The Cowley Vaults (50 Cooper Street, St Helens, WA10 2BH)
Just one door away from the Turks Head, the Cowley Vaults is a completely different looking pub owned by the same folks.  I admired the basic tiled frontage, then stepped through the door into a much more rough 'n' ready basic open plan boozer.  Pool table to the right with one fella playing himself; TV to the left showing the rugby.
 
Ah, it's St Helens on the telly, which explains the lack of a free table in the previous pub.
Rugby watch🏉: 30 minutes in and St Helens were leading Wakefield Trinity 6-12.

There was a much less daunting pick of five cask ales here: two Timothy Taylor and three local brews.
One swift half of Wily Fox 'Blonde Vixen' later, I found a route through streets lesser-trodden by St Helens tourists and rocked up outside the good lookin' Cricketers Arms.
2017 CAMRA National Pub of the Year.

Cricketers Arms (64 Peter Street, St Helens, WA10 2EB)
And stepped through the door into a hot and heaving wickedly busy pub.  Hmm... I was beginning to see the folly of visiting the town pubs on a day when the St Helens away fixture was on TV.

The Cricketers was matching the Turks with another whopping 14 cask ales, plus pizza from a hut in the garden, cheese truckles and a brewery in the back yard (Howzat).

The beers were from the likes of Timothy Taylor, Thornbridge, 4Ts, Osset, Abbeydale and so on.  Not that I saw the list until later, picking a 'Black Moss Stout' from West Yorkshire brewery Riverhead as it was right in front of me at the spot that I managed to squeeze in the bar.

I just visited at the wrong time, propping up an unused bit of the counter and still managing to get in the way there.  This is somewhere I'd love to return to when it's a little quieter and I have the chance to sample the pizza and the home brew.  Next time.

Rugby watch🏉: Wakefield 6 St Helens increasing their lead to 20

Moving on, I made my way to Duke Street where the News Room was the next Beer Guide entry to tick off.
Except it wasn't.
This small bar appears to have changed its identity since the Merseyside CAMRA folks made their fateful beer guide selections for the town.  The name was still the same but there was zero cask ale or anything of interest to drink.  Just one table with cocktails in front of them in at the time that stood wondering if I had the right place, a staff member lurking in the back who didn't spot me, enabling a quick exit.

That left me with one more beer guide tick...The Lamb Inn which I'd passed earlier, so at least knew was open.

The Lamb Inn (113 Corperation Street, St Helens, WA10 1SX)
Built 1864, this sits on a street corner at the end of a two-storey terrace. It consists of two rooms within, either side of a central bar, everything tastefully renovated in 2022.  According to the local paper it was feared lost forever prior to that renovation, having sat closed for some time with 'for sale' signs attached to the wall.

You can peruse the cask ale picks before going in, which was handy as the bar turned out to be another busy one with no chance to study pump clips.

A Titanic 'Little Lamb' for me, a 3.8% light pale ale - although looking back at the choices now, I'm surprised I didn't pick the North Riding or Beartown.

🏉 Rugby update: all done & dusted - Wakefield 6 St Helens 26
Which meant things quietened down a little, giving me a table to myself as punters moved on, or relocated away from the screens to the garden.

With two less Beer Guide pubs than I had expected to visit I was feeling a little deflated.
Nothing like Wetherspoon's for a pick-me-up.

Glass House (Market Street, St Helens, WA10 1NE)
Converted from an indoor market and opened in 2000, this central St Helen's Spoons is named in connection with the town's links to the glass industry
There are two Wetherspoon Glass Houses in the UK, the other being in Norwich - don't send your app order to the Fens
The Wolf Brewery 'Granny Wouldn't Like It' had come all the way from Norfolk too, with other guest options from the more local Birkenhead Peerless Brewery.

I haven't captured it in a picture, but it was chaos in the Glass House.  Too busy at the bar to get easily served when I arrived, so I grabbed a seat in the side room and ordered a Peerless 'Little Eye' and Veg Pizza with extra chilis by app.  My pizza arrived before my beer.  Then two beers instead of one, which would be a great bonus on occasion, but I really didn't need two this afternoon.
Then a drama unfolded outside the big windows as someone tried to evade capture by security guards and later the police, keystone cops antics getting the Spoons crowd cheering and popping outside for timely vape breaks and a closer look.

I called it a day on pub explorations in St Helens at this point - I'll await the 2026 Beer Guide and find out where I could have gone to make up for those two closed/revamped '25 entries.

But at that moment I had a return train trip to Wigan, a visit to the Brewhouse before its early closing time, craft in Wigan Central and a little more singing along to rock classics in the John Bull Chophouse to end the evening.
A great few days in the north-west.
Big thanks and a pint of beer next time I see him to Oxford CAMRA chairman John for coming up with the idea of visiting Wigan beer fest and driving us up the motorway to cause havoc in Greater Manchester. 🍺🏆

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!