Wednesday 8th April 2026
Shortest blog title of the season, RetiredMartin inadvertently laying down the gauntlet yesterday.
The final day of my Easter break ("how is he STILL writing about Easter?") I set out from Bicester North to Birmingham Moor Street once more, needing to go further than ever to find a clutch of pub ticks to keep my numbers healthy.
Worcestershire is the chosen location. It'd prove the strongest day of the holiday, which shouldn't surprise me because Worcs is rapidly become a BRAPA favourite.
Bonus Turmeric drink because my liver was struggling by now, but on the hottest day of the year so far and barely a cloud in the sky, I was feeling cautiously optimistic for the day ahead. I'd also packed another homemade ham and marmalade sandwich which smells like tom cats.
I can't remember how Alvechurch is pronounced, but the 'Alve' is nothing like I'd expected. Though thankfully, the 'church' is as expected so you could argue I was 60% correct which incidentally, is how much of Cornwall I've currently ticked #PubStats
Leering at me from behind a hedge like Sidney Cooke in his pomp, I find the Weighbridge, Alvechurch (3380 / 6280) gearing up for a noon opening. I'm not convinced Alvechurch has a 'centre', it just seems to be a canal and a few blokes fishing, cycling or walking. A Daddy (not BRAPA, it'd have been weird) is feeding a small twild a blackcurrant fruit shoot in the garden but refuses to make eye contact so I wander inside. My first 'red dot' tick (a pub which has been in each of the last five GBGs) since the Greatworth Inn late on Good Friday, and you can immediately see the charm. Multi roomed tight knit cutie, 'pubbier' than 90% of canalside establishments which often disappoint. Though I bet 'pub queuing' is an issue in here on busy summer weekends. The quirky barman growls when I ask if he'd prefer me to pay in cash, saying it doesn't matter mate, citing a vague story involving his Dad, an oil tanker and the U.S. of A, and I choose to drink outside because unlike Bubbenhall, the beer garden is a properr grassy undulating beer garden. Not convinced the beer is quite right, very watery, but at this febrile late stage of the hols, I ain't complaining much.
I briefly consider a long walk / taxi to a faraway place called Weatheroak, but instead decide on the similarly named Wetherspoons : the Redditch edition.
The air conditioning hits with a soothing icy blast as I enter Royal Enfield, Redditch (3381 / 6221). The barmaid is a reet character, and publicly shames me when I opt for Titanic White Star ahead of the Wobbly Bob. "I'm surprised, cos EVERYONE else is drinking it!" Sheesh, she may as well have said she was disappointed in me! I cite the heat and my potential six pub day as excuses but she doesn't look convinced, then quickly moves onto Mr Check Shirt for ordering a burger instead of a salad or something (I can't remember the details, but I join in with a witty quip which he didn't seem to appreciate and this is the problem of getting over a month behind on the blogging). In grand Art Deco resplendence, the White Star drinks dreamily though the general ambience is so very strange. 50% are old blokes necking Wobbly Bob as though they're in a drinking competition and the barrel is running dry, the other 50% being half term twilds with lazy Mums who let them runaround like Mike Reid. It is all very manic, and despite moving to a quieter spot, I never feel properly settled.
Another Redditch tick swiftly follows, a bunch of topless cider can drinking scroats are sat opposite under a rotunda listening to D:Ream on a 90s Panasonic ghettoblaster so I take a circuitous route to the pub entrance.
Mr Red Shoe Diaries (not David Duchovny) is all like "oi oi, I'll follow you in mate!" and then appears behind the bar so I'm all like "oi oi, didn't realise ya worked here" and he's all like "oi oi, sort of. The owner. She's out shopping. She'll be back soon. So can you pay her for your drink then cos I don't know how to get into the till lolz?!" and I'm like "oi oi I'll make a mental note so I don't forget!" Wow, welcome to Black Tap, Redditch (3382 / 6222). A red dotter, and as micropubs go, it probably had too much historical character as a building to be a micro in the strictest sense. The music is the kinda stuff you'd hear in a club at 2am, I prefered D:ream. I think this dude might be the in-house DJ. Then one of the toothless rotunda gang sticks his head through the half open window next to me, says something i can't understand in a local accent, and has a quirky chat with R.S.D. Tis' all very friendly, but a teensy bit scary. I'm nearing the end of my pint but main lady still hasn't returned, so I'm all set to give RSD a fiver and say keep the change, but she pops up just in the nick of time. Phew. Peculiar experience! Oh well, 'things can only get better' (thanks).
I had a third Redditch tick un-greened, but the only days it opens before 6pm are Friday and Sunday, making it perhaps the most un-BRAPA friendly pub hours-wise in the whole GBG considering Thursday and Saturday are my main days.
Battling my way through Bromsgrove, out the other side, it time to bathe in Bathams .....
You know where you stand with a Bathams, and this was impressive even by their high standards. A beautiful expansive multi roomer, the quarry tiles lead to a bar cluttered with old tankards. Swan, Chaddesley Corbett (3383 / 6223), is to paraphrase Barrymore, my kinda boozer. A bunch of old opinionated guffers are getting the cobs in and I think why not join them, the cheese & onions look devilishly thick. The locals look at me like "Who authorised this, pipsqueak?" Just cos my tummy doesnt have its own gravitational pull. Mine takes a while to arrive, and unlike the local ones it comes on a plate with a chunky side salad, the cucumber almost thicker than the slab of cheese. Bootiful. I go exploring cos the old farts love the sound of their own voices, and find a secluded side room, all empty, apart from a few lost toilet lookers who pop their head around the door to say hi. I then move again, outside into the huge beer garden and with the church bell bonging in the background and the sun warm, I decide this is how heaven should be. I can even afford to chuck my homemade ham and marmalade sandwich which smells like tom cats into the bin behind me, which I did with a triumphant flourish and got a few more weird looks, but quite frankly, who cares?
My new iPhone 16e camera doesn't have a 0.5 'zoom out' function so I will miss some of these wider shots, though I do confess it distorts pints into looking like halves and vice versa at times!
A short bus ride (I'd have walked had I realised pavements weren't a problem) takes me to roundabout at Mustow Green. From there, it's a short walk to the tiny village of Shenstone.
The Bathams continues to flow at the Plough, Shenstone (3384 / 6224) and just be careful not to confuse it with the other Shenstone near Lichfield, which also has a Plough - almost like they are deliberately trying to confuse poor innocent pub tickers! Feels like an underdog in comparison to the Swan, NOT that they are rivals. The setting is sleepier, the pub smaller, less grand, less 'knowing'. The grass isn't real, outside more resembles a warm Falkirk Stadium - the dunnocks in the C.Corbett hedgerows have been replaced by birds with the voice of John McGlynn. The barman is a gentle chap, the Mild is off so a second pint of Bitter it is .... I'm not complaining, I was just trying to mix it up. I manage to swerve a second cob. For the comparative limitations, the underdog lover in me appreciates the Plough even more. Certainly I'd have to go back to the Admiral Rodney in Criggion 2016 to recall a pub setting with so little noise pollution.
Back to Mustow Green we go. Bus shelter of the year despite a vague smell of stale piss, and I had to keep an eagle eye for the bus bombing through the roundabout as I couldn't afford to miss the final one of the day to Kiddie.
The BRAPA gods, who'd punished me so severely yesterday for Sutton Coldfield actually being good for once in its miserable little life, had truly forgiven me now.
The bus arrives without a hitch, and over in Kiddie, perhaps the BEST pub I've ever been to there, and it is usually quite good anyway ......
This is it then, final pub of the holiday plonked down an unassuming side road, betwixt residential homes, schoolkids returning home. Closer to station than town centre probably, but by gum what a pub Chester Tavern, Kidderminster (3385 / 6225) is, one of those 'where have you been all my life?' booze holes. The bar blocker is a huge fluffy dog, but docile and friendly so not a twog. "Named after a Led Zepellin album .... a shit one at that!" chuckles a bloke who might or might not be the owner. Coda, if you wondered. My Led Zep knowledge stops at Led Zep III so I couldn't possibly comment. They put one of my fave modern bands Turnstile on the jukebox, so weird to hear them in a pub, no wonder tickets for their Piece Hall HFX gig sold out in like minutes! An interesting, very cheerful group who really made the atmosphere. They managed to give off 'folk on holiday from Cleethorpes', 'sozzled locals in here everyday' AND 'staff having a breather' all in one go. Remarkable. My beer was absolutely 5* and all I ordered was some dark brown 'collab' (ugh) between Batemans and Titanic. It had been a strong finish to my week away, and although it probably ain't trendy enough, I'd be considering this one for national CAMRA pub of the year. A cat called Physical Graffiti lurked in the background (probably).
Back to Bicester via Brum, though I got confused between New Street and Moor Street which definitely wasn't beer related. And home to York the following morning.
Join me next time for my drunkest day of 2026 so far, and I'm blaming Sheffield.
Keep it pub, Si
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