Rugeley Pub Explorations

An afternoon hop into the town of Rugeley, where I had a Spoons cinema conversion, Heritage Pub, brew pub, and micro pub, to visit.

The first port of call, handy for the Town station, is this grand old red brick cinema...

The Plaza (Horsefair, Rugeley, WS15 2EJ)
This purpose-built cinema opened as The Picture House in November 1934.  It was renamed the Plaza in 1940 and continued to show movies to the folk of Rugeley until 1996, when the last popcorn was sold whilst Will Smith saved the world in Independence Day.  After that final film had been shown, J.d Wetherspoon brought the building and opened it as a pub in 1998.

It doesn't really retain that much of an old cinema feel to it.  There's some booth seating at the very front where the old lobby would have been, then a couple of steps take you to the bar and a rear section with high ceiling and a balcony to the side.
No one bats an eyelid in the nearby Stafford  Picture House when you clambour up the stairs to take a picture of the pub, but I got some funny looks doing the same here. 

The cask choice on this visit (alongside your Spoons regulars) came from Enville, Green Jack, a single hop series offering from Acorn, and a pale ale from Nottinghamshire brewery Pheasantry.
Just £1.49 for the Pheasantry 'Excitra'.  

A perfectly fine pint (and who's going to complain for £1.49) but what I really wanted was to find some Banks's bitter...

For this, I headed through the very quiet streets of the town centre, then to Market Street for a pub in the Heritage guide.

Red Lion (19 Market Street, Rugeley, WS15 2JH)
This Grade II-listed inn dates back to the 16th century and was last refitted in the 1930's, at the same time that the Plaza was opening the doors for the first time and showing Shirley Temple in 'Pardon my Pups'.

Heading through the front door you're in a cosy bar with low beams, red quarry tiled floor, and wood panels.  The bench seating around the sides was busy with locals.  The pub poodle came to check me out and found me thoroughly uninteresting.

I procured my pint of Banks's Amber - just the one cask ale, making for an easy choice.
The bar and carpeted side room were busy, so I squeezed around the side of the counter and through the door into the basic room with darts board to the right-side of the pub.

Shame there was no space in the main bar, as I had this room all to myself, other than when a chap popped in, rearranged his shopping bags, and popped out again.
Boston's 'More than a Feeling' played in the background and was very predictably followed by 'Don't Stop Believing'.  Then a run of three Foreigner tracks - as much Foreigner as I need this year. 
And the Banks's amber went down a treat.

Moving on from the Red Lion, I had a 15-minute walk ahead of me into suburban Rugeley, in search of a micro.
Down here somewhere...

In the corner of the Fernwood Shopping centre...
Would it be worth the walk?

The Rusty Barrel (Fernwood Shopping Centre, Green Lane, Rugeley, WS15 2GS)
I timed my arrival just after the 4pm opening but there were a half dozen in already and by the time I drained the last of my pint all the tables were taken.

This is a single room micro pub with some pleasingly simple wooden high-backed bench seating, a run of barrels down the middle, and a satisfying display of pump clips on the ceiling.

There were four interesting cask ales to pick from, plus crafty kegs and real cider on offer.  I opted for a pint of the Green Duck 'Duck Dastardly', a dandelion and burdock stout, which sounds dubious but was pretty darn fine.
I did enjoy the Rusty Barrel and was glad I'd made the effort to walk out here.

I made the trek back through the housing estates toward the town centre, pausing to take my first random photograph of someone's driveway since Plymouth last August.
Is it really necessary to park the 4x4 there, rather than, say, in the big garage?  Or are they just showing off its off-road prowess?
I'd wake up in a cold sweat wondering if I'd put the handbrake on properly.

Time for some marginally more conventional pictures of the pub, as I reached the Vine Inn.
Parked cars on a sensible level surface, but getting in the way of my photo.

The Vine (Sheep Fair Close, Rugeley, WS15 5AT)
This doesn't strike me as the most obvious looking pub - I may have mistaken it for housing had it not been for the sign on one wall and Bass light amongst the foliage above the door.

It's a pleasing basic place within, with a multi-room layout including a couple of spacious seating areas and a snug.
There were two cask ales on offer, one from the Vine's on-site brewery, the other from Staffordshire micro Blythe.

A home-brew best bitter for me, supped in the window seat with wood cracking away on the stove to my side.
That heady blend of dandelion and burdock in the 5.2% stout must have gone to my head by this point, judging by the blurry photo.

I may have only been there for one midweek afternoon, but I think I've done the best of the Rugeley pubs.  I'd certainly done four completely different places and had four decent beers.

Drinking up at the Vine, I made my way to the bus station and the number 826 to Stafford.  That would be my base for the night and the source of some Titanic stouts - somewhere I'll be waffling on about on the blog sometime soon.
But before that, some Bass...

The Burford Stomp

There were still two Oxfordshire pubs in the 2024 Good Beer Guide that I hadn't visited, requiring trips to Deddington and Burford. Strangely, this wasn't filling me with much excitement.
To reduce my 'to do' list to one, we set off on a Saturday morning to the western reaches of the county into the Cotswolds.

22-miles from Oxford, situated next to the River Windrush, Burford is home to just over 1,500 folk.  A figure much bolstered by visitors strolling the High Street with its patisseries, antique stores, Cotswold cheese and craft shops.  And traffic...lots of traffic.
I waited for a gap in the cars crawling down the A361 to take a picture of the pub...

The Golden Pheasant (91 High Street, Burford, OX18 4QA)
The Pheasant was one of the few places that wasn't serving lunch.  And as the Burford touristic masses demand a pub lunch, the Pheasant was painfully quiet.

The poor boar, head displayed unceremoniously on the wall, is destined to oversee the horrors of this pub room for the foreseeable future.
Some dreadfully busy patterns on the upholstery.  Folks sitting in their body warmers because it was awfully chilly.  Soup of the Day: Tomato.  Olly Murs as a soundtrack.   Argggggg!

Two cask beers were available on the bar, 'Cotswold Best' or 'Shagweaver', both from the North Cotswold Brewery of Moreton-in-Marsh.
The Best was on very average form, although I'd take a punt this was the first action the hand pump had seen all day and perhaps the whole pub visit would be much better at a later hour.

We did try to call into the Angel, a Hook Norton pub down a side street which is a regular in the Beer Guide.  But they weren't short of a crowd, with all tables taken, and the the only option for the drinks-only custom being the patio on a chilly, grey day.

A few doors down the same street is the Wadworth Royal Oak.

Royal Oak (26 Witney Street, Burford, OX18 4FN)
This was just marginally better than the Angel in that we were allowed to sit on two stools at the bar with our beers.  Other than that, every single table was occupied by the lunchtime 2-course meal trade.
This gives me mixed feelings.  If there's not even a ledge to perch on and call in for a drink without upsetting gentlefolk diners, is this really a pub?  But on the other hand, they're not going to survive and upkeep the Cotswold stone buildings on the profits they make from my pint of Horizon pale ale.

Anyway, not a bad pint.  Someone popped up to the bar post-lunch raving about this exotic 6X stuff and asking where they could buy some to take home.
The rugby kicked off on the small screens and we headed back out into the grey day to see if we had better pub luck elsewhere.
Let's try the other side of the town...

Lamb Inn (Sheep Street, Burford, OX18 4LR)
The Lamb is a sizeable hotel (we could have a double room for £265 if we decided we couldn't face the 3-leg bus journey back home).  Walking along the front of it I could spy the smart looking dining room, but stepping in the furthest door took us into a characterful little bar with flagstone floor. 

I thought the bar was great.  Toastily warm, requiring us to shed the layers.  Big old high-backed settle which looks the part but was probably most uncomfortable.  Decorative plates on display; pewter mugs hanging from the beams.

There were two hand pumps on the bar for cask: Fullers 'London Pride' or this mysterious Cotswold Ale... 

I never did discover who brewed it, but it went down well.
We were content sat on a bench next to the wood-burning stove, where they hadn't been able to resist a few scatter cushions.

We checked the bus times and figured we just had time for one last pint in Burford before starting to make our homeward-bound journey.
For which we picked the Cotswold Arms, back on the High Street.

The Cotswold Arms (46 High Street, Burford, OX18 4QF)
Stepping through the front door, at least this looked like a proper pub, with a casual room by the bar, full of folk grumbling at the rugby on a big screen.

"Yes, can I help?" demanded the officious staff member who'd probably clocked us non-customers trying to sneak in to use the loos.  We were actually trying to check there was somewhere to sit before ordering, based on previous pubs of the day. 

Beers from Stroud Brewery and Cotswold Lion were on reasonable form at a sensible price for this part of the world.  Just a shame that we were stuck in the rear dining room which was quietening down by this point in the afternoon and a very dull place to sit.

Right, back on the 234 bus to Witney.

Not too busy

When we reached Witney we headed down the pedestrianised shopping streets for a crafty pint.

The Crafty Pint (8 Langdale Court, Witney, OX28 6FG)
Previously a charity shop, this opened in 2018 as Oxbrew, later to become the Drummers Bar.  A Covid-era conservatory out front upset the local conservation folks, which may possibly be why the GBG-listed Drummers shut overnight.
It's now been taken over by the former manager, more seating has been added inside, and this micro pub (still a rarity in Oxfordshire) has taken on a new lease of life as the Crafty Pint.

Here's the beer choice...two cask and six keg.

A decent pint of the local Lovebeer 'Skyfall' for me, in the pleasant, relaxed environs with a decent number of locals in for an afternoon drink or two.  The staff were lovely, enthusing over the beer and tempting me to return in a week for a Lovebeer Brewery tap takeover.

We called into the Spoon's Company of Weavers for pizza and one more pint that I didn't really need, then called it a day.
Job done & just the one Oxfordshire GBG'24 pub left for me to do in the coming months.

 

The Red Lion at Yarnton

I'm keeping it local here, with a short trip on a wintry Saturday to the recently reopened Red Lion in the village of Yarnton.
Throughout the day we found lots of dogs, an argumentative customer, Bass disappointment, and a raucous Saturday evening crowd in the latest incarnation of the Grapes.

Yarnton is just a 4-mile rush-hour traffic jam away from central Oxford and home to around 2,750 folk.  I can't find anything remarkable to report about Yarnton - typing it into Google brought up the local garden centre in 6 of the top 7 search results.

So, let's head straight to the pub, which very nearly disappeared.

The Red Lion (127 Cassington Road, Yarnton, OX5 1QD)
We did a minibus tour of half a dozen Oak Taverns pubs back in October, completing the day at the Crown in Marcham.  At the time, The Crown had just become the 15th Oak Taverns pub - since then,The Red Lion has become the 16th.

The stories of both are remarkably similar.  The Red Lion was closed by Admiral Taverns in the summer of 2022, the future of a village pub looking very uncertain.  An attempt by the local community to buy it failed; then Oak Taverns stepped in, gave it a lick of paint, and opened it with their drinks-led, community pub focus. 

The cask range wasn't quite as impressive as those we found on our October trip.  Butcombe from Somerset, St Austell from Cornwall, XT from Buckinghamshire providing the local option.
We started on the cider, being dispensed from a box at the back of the bar in the picture above, before I returned to the bar for the XT '3' - a sessionable IPA on good form.

What was nice to see was that the Red Lion was doing a good Saturday afternoon trade, including families, ladies talking needle craft, and LOTS of dog walkers.  There was an impressive collection of muddy wellington boots by the door by the time we left.

I figured we should really check out the other pub on the edge of the village whilst in the vicinity.

The Turnpike Inn (2 Woodstock Road, Yarnton, OX5 1PJ)
These buildings were originally a set of roadside cottages which were converted into an inn called the Bunch of Grapes.  It picked up its current name when the road on which it stands became a toll booth controlled turnpike in 1719.

Entry is via the back door from the car park, leading into a small area by the bar which offers up a couple of tables for the casual drinker.

Our arrival coincided with a lady having an extended argument, waving the menu at the manager.  What it was about I have no idea, but it was long-winded.  I felt sorry for the husband, sat well out the way, then given cup of coffee and told to drink it quickly as we're leaving.
The manager had remained professionally calm, but pulled the Purity hand-pump more aggressively than necessary when I was eventually served my 'Mad Goose'.

Not a bad pint, to be fair (Doom Bar being the alternative).
The rest of this large place consists of tables very much set up for dining within the refurbished old rooms.  No photo's to remind me what it looked like but, for reasons now forgotten, I felt it important to get a record of the botanic wallpaper in the gents...

We hopped aboard the next Oxford-bound bus, alighting partway down Banbury Road.
Our destination was North Parade, which is one of Oxford's great little streets and contains two pubs - the consistently good Rose & Crown and the Gardeners Arms.

The Gardeners Arms (8 North Parade Avenue, Oxford, OX2 6LX)
It used to be a bit like a time-warp stepping into this place, a former Morrell's pub, opened in 1872.  The same tenants ran the Gardeners for 30 years before retiring in 2022.
Reopened in October '23, it is now being operated by the Morgan Pub Co.

And they delighted me with the rare - nay, unheard of - sight of Bass in Oxford city centre.

A short-lived delight, as it was way past it's best, murky with aroma of egg.
Our beers were changed with no fuss for the other cask option, Brew York's 'Calmer Chameleon', a session strength tropical pale ale.  But no substitute for the Bass.

This a narrow pub with some classic leather-padded bench seating in the front section, bar in the middle and a handful of tables to the rear.
Nice to have the evening Premier League match on TV for us to keep an eye on, although this is one of those pubs where there really isn't a suitable place to stick a large screen.  Only the departure of the folks on the high stools enabled me to see it.

We ordered veggie hot dogs then felt rather guilty that the one chap behind the bar seemed to be jack of all trades, whizzing upstairs to prepare our food, then back to man the bar.

Fed and watered, we just had time to call into the Grapes on George Street, also in the hands of the same pub company as the Gardeners Arms.

The Grapes (7 George Street, Oxford, OX1 2AT)
This is somewhere that has gone through a number of identities in recent years and spent some time closed.  But it seems to be back to it's best in the latest incarnation.

Okay, the high tables aren't going to be to everyone's taste and I'll probably fall off one of those stools one day.  But it's tastefully decorated with a plethora of pictures filling the wall opposite the bar, vinyl lined up next to a record player, a stack of board games, and big TVs now installed to show sporting fixtures.

And the choice of beer is superb - six hand pumps offering Harvey's 'Sussex Best' (my pick this time, an easy NBSS4) alongside five constantly changing guests.
Taps line the length of the bar back and offer Mrs PropUptheBar the chance to pick something sour and complain that it's too sour.

This proved a rewarding local day out.  With three of the pubs we'd visited having recently spent time closed it was super to see them open and doing a good job (that Bass excepted!).

Hockley and Birmingham Pub Crawl

Another fine day out in Birmingham, in which we covered Heritage pubs, a desi pub, a brewery tap, Black Country Ales, and a foolishly strong craft beer as a nightcap before the train home.
Now that's what I call a good bit of variety.
Here's the route we took, nicely clocking up the mileage throughout the day...

We started in the Jewellery Quarter at a pub that I've stood and photographed before, but never set foot in...

Rose Villa Tavern (172 Warstone Lane, Hockley, Birmingham, B18 6JW)
The Rose Villa Tavern was built for Mitchells & Butler in 1919 by architects Wood and Kendrick for the princely sum of £15,000.  It's not as un-spoilt as some of the other red-bricked gems in the city, but can boast some pretty stunning windows and decorative tiling within.

I'm really sad to see the Barton's Arms (visited on my last pub crawl around this neck of the woods) has recently shut it's doors again.  There's a plethora of pubs on the Birmingham heritage list with red 'currently closed' notices under their entries. 
It briefly looked like the Rose Villa may join them when it closed at the end of 2021, but Star Taverns rapidly installed new tenants and opened the doors after a bit of a spruce up.

It was doing a roaring trade for just gone midday when we visited, the main bar busy and loud with most tables taken.  Too loud for me - Michael Jackson and Abba not my lunchtime music of choice. 
I took my Timothy Taylor 'Landlord' (the sole cask option, hidden to the side of the bar) through to the quiet room behind the servery, which also happens to be the best place to admire the spectacular tiling.

 

The Rose Villa Tavern provided a nice pit-stop in our trek north of the city centre.
We had another 20 minutes ahead of us past Gib Heath Park, dodgy housing estates, light industrial units, and some depressingly prolific fly-tipping.
Would it be worth the effort for lunch in a desi pub?  Oh yes!

Soho Tavern (407 Park Road, Hockley, Birmingham, B18 5SR)
At one point the Soho Tavern was on a steady downhill slope to closure.  There's a picture on the Lost Pubs Project, showing it with cream tiles on the lower half, impenetrable thick bottle glass windows, and a proper old school M&B pub sign.

The current owners took over in 2014, introduced Indian food, and saw a whole new customer base rock up through the door.  It's been enough of a success to see them open several more venues of the same name throughout the West Midlands.

It's now very shiny and modern.  I'd love to know what it used to look like, but I'll guarantee it's unrecognizable today, with the possible exception of the not so shiny and modern WC's.

There was no real ale available, but keg options Blue Moon or 'Jute' from Salt seemed a safe bet with your lunchtime curry.  As was the MB keg Mild that I picked, then went back for more of.

We'd ventured into West Brom territory here.  The Soho Tavern was pretty full with supporters getting a pre-match drink and bite to eat prior to the local derby against Birmingham City.  The tattooed chap with curry-induced sweaty brow at the next table checked if we were here for the footy and if we were 'blue noses'.  Having found a mix of both sets of fans on the next table there was no ire for the visitors from across town, both seeming to share a distaste for Villa instead.

We didn't have far to go to our next pub.
The Heritage-listed Black Eagle is little more than 50 meters down the road.
And the pub sign has to be up there with the best I've seen...

Black Eagle (16 Factory Road, Hockley, B18 5JU)

Re-built in 1895, it feels as though not a great deal has changed since then.  This is a cracking proper pub with four rooms around a central bar where the staff can shuffle between counters looking out onto three of the drinking spaces.

The tap room was the busiest, the two hand pumps serving up Wye Valley 'Butty Bach' or 'HPA'.
"What's yours love?", asked the cheery lady behind the bar.
As the chap in front was carrying away three pints of freshly poured foaming HPA I opted for the same.  £4.00 for a quite superb pint that I'm beginning to think may have been worthy of more than the 4* I gave it on the CAMRA scoring thingy. 

The pub quietened down a little towards the end of our visit, many of the punters obviously heading off to the Hawthorns.

We had a 25-minute walk ahead of us, willing the drizzle not to develop into proper rain and soak us between pubs (I have a habit of getting soaked between pubs in Birmingham).
Burning Soul wasn't going to quite match the heritage pubs as far as the photos are concerned...

Burning Soul Brewery (Unit 1 Mott Street Industrial, Hockley, B19 1HE)
With limited opening on Friday and Saturday only, this tap room has always eluded me when I've been in the vicinity.
It's a pretty down to earth tap room, with a handful of beer-fest style benches and a couple of sofas that I can attest are hard to get out of once you've sunk into them.  The brewing kit lies in the back section beyond the bar counter, a small group getting a tour whilst we were there.

Burning Soul was set up by enthusiastic home brewers who decided to procure some proper kit and make their concoctions commercially available.  They moved into this industrial unit in 2016 after it had been vacated by Two Towers Brewery - who were themselves moving to the Gunmakers Arms.

The beer board advertised 11 choices, 10 on the taps and one cask ale which I opted for - a most enjoyable 'Mild Obsession'.

Next up, a bit of a diversion from the straight-forward route back to the city.  My central Birmingham beer guide ticks were missing the Prince of Wales, tucked between a couple of tower blocks and the International Convention Centre.

The Prince of Wales (84 Cambridge Street, Birmingham, B1 2NP)
This dates back to 1854 and is the last standing of what was once a row of three storey buildings along Cambridge Street.
The pub has been in the hands of the ever-reliable Black Country Ales since 2022. 
So you know there will be a long run of cask ales to pick from...

Beers came from Beowulf, Wantsum, Silhill, Salopian, an M&B Brew XI, and the four regular Black Country Ales offerings.
I picked the Silhill 'North Star', a jet black smooth chocolatey porter.
We got the last available table right at the far end of the single room.  It's Six Nations time again and a fair amount of the customers in the Prince of Wales were glued to the screens.

Right...almost there.  The final leg of our route took us close to Snow Hill Station and to the magnificent-looking Old Contemptibles...

The Old Contemptibles (176 Edmund Street, Birmingham, B3 2HB)
Originally an 18th century pub, this was redeveloped as the Albion Hotel in the 1880's with a nod toward the gin palaces which were popular at the time.  It was renamed in 1953 in honour of a British Expeditionary Force who fought in France in the First World War and later made the pub a regular meeting place.

There's just the one sprawling, long, room with high ceilings and impressive big windows.

A relatively familiar Nicholson's beer range was on offer, including 'London Pride', Nicholsons 'Pale ale', 'Doom Bar', 'Old Peculiar' and 'Plum Porter'.
I did raise a quizzical eyebrow and question the £9.15 price tag for a pint of Plum Porter and a half of Old Peculiar.  Strewth.

Sitting in the corner of the pub, sipping our beers, we checked train times for our return journey and discovered we had a fair bit of time to spare thanks to a cancelled train.
Which provided Mrs PropUptheBar the opportunity for a last-gasp Craft Beer Diversion in time added on.

Kilder (5 Shaw's Passage, Digbeth, B5 5JG)
I had no idea there was a craft beer bar in the arches underneath Moor Street station and perhaps this is a dangerous bit of knowledge for future Birmingham trips!
Kilder is a stylish railway arch, with a range of seating, including comfy leather padded benches at the sides, and moody lighting.

The tap list provided us with 14 options: lagers from Verdant and Duration; stouts from Siren and Porterhouse; continental brews from La Trappe and Weihenstephan.
But, of course, I went for the strongest - a Gamma 'You Sure About That' 10% TIPA.
"You sure about that?" asked Mrs PropUptheBar, rightly predicting that I'd fall asleep on the train on the way home. 

The West Midlands had come up trumps again with a great set of places for us to visit on this day out.
And I'll be back, as I still have plenty more Birmingham heritage pubs, brewery taps, and desi pubs on my 'to do' list.