Saturday 22nd November 2025
All aboard the Dudley bound bus, 10:15am on a grey drizzly Brum day. A return home for my eponymous duck mascot. A slightly less talkative fellow traveller than Daddy BRAPA.
No trains to London today had forced our hand, no QPR away game for us. We'd lose anyway, so it proved a lucky break. Not to mention the fact I'd be in London on Monday for the beginning of a week's ticking.
Plenty of churn for me in the West Midlands in 2026, randomly dotted about for maximum annoyance but when you head west of Cradley Heath, the standard is generally some of the best pubbing in the UK.
That 'difficult first hour' (hardly any of my WM ticks open before 12, shame on you!) was filled in at Dudley's sometime GBG Wetherspoons, the Full Moon. I'd rank it in the above average 'Spoons category, give that carpet a hoover and it is at least an 8. Very friendly, and well kept ale.
A slightly delayed bus outside a Ghanaian themed canteen (up the Cape Coast Ebusua Mysterious Dwarfs!) takes us to the 'burb of Netherton. Ignore the 11am sign, ten mins we're stood under its dripping 'for sale' sign, so much relief when we hear that happy rattle of key and latch ......
Always the first mistake for any ticker, but I'd expected great things of the Old Swan, Netherton (3145 / 5986). Famous for brewing its own beer in the 1970's when hardly anyone else did, it still does today. A canny chap reels off six beer names in under two seconds. I couldn't see a pumpclip / board. 'IPA' is all I catch, so I go with that. £3 a pint, absolute barry bargain. Enjoyable drop. Always a relief, pubs brewing there own stuff, bloody 'ell its a dangerous road to tread! Known as Ma Pardoe's cos it had the same landlady for about 100 years. But today the pub is disappointingly chilly, disjointed, it feels like it is in limbo waiting for the next chapter of its existence, for new life to be breathed into it. An army of staff stand in a huddle generating body warmth, serving the occasional random old bloke who shuffles in. It's a nice building and has fireplace that could do with being lit, an organ piano thing that could do with being cranked up. Look, I know opening time is a tough one to judge, but I've been in enough pubs bang on opening to know when they aren't fulfilling undoubted potential. An anti-social bloke video calls the local hip replacement centre for a quote. Our bus is imminent.
The bus doesn't stop in the most helpful place, but a short uphill walk in the mist and that fine rain soaking you to the skin leads us up to pub two ......
Cementing in my mind that the Old Swan had underperformed and I wasn't just being harsh, this is EXACTLY the kinda pub I'd take around the country with me if possible. Lamp Tavern, Dudley (3146 / 5987) is a Bathams and Bathams never let you down. Bostin' brewins! I'd go as far as to say that this is my second favourite of theirs after the flagship Vine (Bull n Bladder) at nearby Brierley Hill. Such a simplistic formula but it works spectacularly. Makes me aware just how many pubs up and down the UK over complicate things. When Avril Lavigne wrote THAT song, it was after a crawl of Bathams pubs during the UK leg of her 1999 tour. #BRAPAFact Mild or Bitter? Since I've learned that the locals (and Avril) go Bitter every time, I'm inclined to opt for that. Though it is patently obvious to staff and punters that I'm a one time visitor. So I go Mild today. And Dad's right about the roast beef cobs, despite my homepacked snacks, no way we're passing them up. Wow, tis the freshest beef I've tasted in years. A cow called Bob must be tethered up behind the pub, and they shave bits off him like a kebab. Barmaid looks sad that I've declined the addition of onions - they come in a plastic tub with tongs and you help yourself. So I relent. Condiment sachets too, she really wants me to have the full experience! Reckons that it has been known for some of her wilder locals to add both salad cream AND mayo to the same cob! Who are these monsters?? I'll stick to English mustard thanks. It is as much 'yum yum' as 'yam yam' around here. Daddy B says "can't we just stay in 'ere til our 7pm train?" Don't tempt me Dad, don't tempt me.
Retrospective apologies to Dad next as I get my Gornal's in a twist, and we end up needing a lengthy walk from Upper to Lower, though I'm sure we did this same route in June '24 when ticking the (superior) Fountain. But as ya know bab, West Mids loves mixing it up ......
BCA, but of course! No West Midlands day would be complete without one. Old Bull's Head, Lower Gornal (3147 / 5988) is more challenging than most, mainly due to a huge group of yoofs under the TV screen in the far corner. Judging by their trackies, I think they are from some local sports club - football and hockey I think, there's some lasses too. Rowdy lads. After a particularly dreadful renditions of 'Sit Down' by James, the landlady comes over and shouts at them to tone it down and respect their fellow customers. "AV IT!" And that's Black Country Ales pubs for you, reet good n proper. You could get bored of them, claim they have too many beers on, claim their carpets can be identikit, but I won't hear a bad word against them. Name me another chain this size who do pubs so well. Dad's thinking of writing to them, requesting they open a Yorkshire spin-off chain. 'North Country Pints?' Is that a Charlatans song? BCA favour a South Yorkshire guest anyway, and this Casper from Stancil really does drink like a friendly ghost. Immaculate. Onto the next.
Keeping up my recent run of Uber profligacy, I book us one (my penultimate in 2025 I'm glad to report) to save us an uphill 20 min soggy walk followed by a bus to Sedgley.
Two new ticks here. How's this even possible? We've done four here in the past 18 months! So six now, surely they must be running out! Makes Norwich look like an underpopulated pub city, York is blushing and Edinburgh is saying 'steady on old chap'. Meanwhile, Corby says "can we have one of yours, just one, pleeeasssee?"
It's like some enterprising local #PubMan had a day out around a load of Bathams, Holdens and Black Country Ales inns with a notepad and pen, bought a desolate grey building for nowt, and said "I fancy a bit o' that". Swan Inn, Sedgley (3148 / 5989) has all the hallmarks of a boozer in this part of the world. Unfussy, central pillars acting as partitions. A Wolves kid is addicted to darts. Throwing the arrows with such ferocity to takes his mind off their abysmal season. Navigating around him to find a table was fraught with danger and puncture wounds. The beer is Salopian. Good, I love Salopian. Though I hate Lemon Dream with a passion, one of the most despicable beers ever brewed. Avoid like the plague. Folk only love it cos of the name. Trust me. Simpletons. Hop Twister is, like their Oracle and a few others, amazing, and well kept here. Whenever Dad faces a Sky Sports News screen, Hull City concede. Fun fact. Happens here too. So I'm glad when he goes to the loo, the screen suddenly flashes up that we've gone into a 2-1 lead. I tell this 'considerably richer than yow' couple next to me that I'm going to surprise him with the news, but when he comes back, he somehow already knows! Boo.
"No more checking the score until full time now, it is only unlucky!" I instruct Dad. He agrees, and remains true to his word (as far as I can tell) but we lost 3-2 anyway. Rubbish. Even when we're having a good season, we'll lose at Loftus Road. Much like Stoke at home, some fixtures you just KNOW.
Holden's, yippee, and the holy trinity of West Mids pub types was complete. If you factor in the early 'Spoons, we'd be shouting 'full house!'. I enjoyed the Bull's Head, Sedgley (3149 / 5990) even if fifth pint of the day syndrome + a six week passage of time has me solely relying on my source material. Holden's do an ESB. It is disconcertingly pale, so you think 'oh, that's ok then' but about two thirds of the way down your pint (and it will be a pint because let's face it, you won't be drinking a half in here unless you wanna smack), it kicks you in the guts. In the best possible way. Then it knees you in the groin. In a chummy manner. The atmosphere is clubby calm. Bleak would be cruel. A Billy Ocean song merges into Dolly Parton with unwavering smoothness. Good pub. I'd still rank Mount Pleasant first and Beacon Hotel second though in my Sedg league table. Then this. Swan 4th. The Spoons in 5th. And that weird thing that made the GBG last year in sixth, though it wasn't bad.
I suppose the high (cruel) churn around here makes sense when you break it down, if every single town & village in that Wolverhampton-Dudley-Stourbridge area have at least one Holden's, Bathams and BCA all keeping good beer, then OF COURSE there's gonna be more rotation than Hull City v Blackburn FA Cup Round Three 10/01/2026.
And I shouldn't moan too much, because when I come to do them with Daddy B., they are always some of the strongest days in the BRAPA calendar.
Bus to Wolverhampton, and a train back into Brum and for once in my life outside New St station, there was no time-slip so I have time to mop-up my most central pub tick.
A pub of good intentions, Good Intent, Birmingham (3150 / 5991) is a shopping centre micro of sorts which gives all its money to swans with broken wings and kittens with sore paws. I'm delighted how quiet it is this evening. When I'd considered doing it post-emptively a couple of Guides ago, it was so heaving that you couldn't get inside. I gave up on it and went to the Craven or Bull. A Craddock's hole, not beers I particularly enjoy and I've never met anyone who does, but at least it was another West Mids pub genre to tick off my imaginary bingo card. Besides, their Christmas Ale (yes, it was THAT time of the year ALREADY!) is 6% and easily the nicest I've had from them. And although it took a while (the machine groaned heavily), Dad gave his coffee a 4* on the NCSS. Untwappd has become such a binfire of an App, I'm surprised he couldn't check it in there. Pepsi Max, I mean FFS! Oh, and this was the pub I brought up the 70 percent (which rhymes with Good Intent) to put the cherry on the top of an excellent day.
Back home via a New St coffee kiosk, Dad fully caffeinated by now, and as far as I can remember, a trouble free ride home.
See you on Friday for Croydon memories. It'll be a ten pub epic. I've already written about nine of them but being thoughtful, I'm giving you tomorrow off to recover!
Off to watch Traitors on catch up and 1989 Home & Away, I'm loving Morag and Blind Nigel.
Si
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