Saturday 12th August 2025
It was all aboard the Severn Valley Railway on another scorchio summer Saturday down south, travelling in style (though diesel not steam) from Kidderminster to Bewdley which might just be my favourite #PubTown of 2025 so far.
Worcestershire really is the gift that keeps giving in the latter stages of my 2024/25 pub ticking season, and to think that due to its placing in the alphabet I was going to wait until 2037 to tackle it .... by which point all the good pubs in the UK will be shutdown according to the doom mongers.
The first of five listed in the GBG, helpfully open at 11am so we can hit the ground running is the Real Ale Tavern, Bewdley (3244 / 5731) or the RAT as it is known locally. A Black Country Ales pub (BCA if you really wanna go plough the acronym furrow) and it feels as though 50% of pubs I've visited this year are BCA's. I'm not complaining too much - a chain designed in my mould. Breaking news on the street ..... their Citra Sublime has been restored to 5% because every yam yam and bab out there complained they weren't feeling pissed enough by closing time. The folk at the bar are 'characters'. A woman with an Aldi bag has a headache. "The French for paracetamol is Carling!" cracks a bloke next to me. The pub roars with laughter. I don't get it, but Dad's in the loo so I join in anyway and even go so far as to remark 'oh, very good' in the voice of Henry Blofeld as Root paddles a single down to third man. The carpet pushes 8/10, but the air con is 10/10 and that matters more. Dad peers over at the cobs longingly and tells me not to pack us any snacks (I'd put in posh scotch eggs) for future visits to this part of the country, something he'd remind me pre-Bromsgrove a few weeks from now.
Time to step back out into the oven and break the bad news to Dad that we had to climb a hill to pub #2. Not a long distance, but in these Guadalajara '86 conditions, it was far enough. I was feeling rather Ray Wilkins.
But definitely worth the effort, Black Boy, Bewdley (3245 / 5732) was my pub of the day. The overlapping circle patterns gave us BRAPA pub carpet of the year so far (9.5/10), will anything beat it? We shuffle past two shabby old grizzlers with toothy grins and a taste for the cider, and find an empty back bar, where our hostess with the mostest gives us the most cordial of welcomes. She's on loan from Lancaster University, which allows Dad to tell her about our relatives with Lanc Uni credentials. I briefly insert Preston in the chat, get slightly booed, so order a pint of the local slop which turned out not to be slop at all. Hang on, Bewdley has a brewery, who knew?? Oh, me .... we're off there next! We find a draughty open window but she tells us to beware the wasps. No problem, only one came in, he was a bit scrawny, sniffed my pint, and flew back out. The HPA pump is strategically hidden behind a blackboard because it is the local's favourite, cheeky! A hard pub to leave in many ways, but even more so because the previously mute man who slithered into our room won't stop chatting to us, and then the local grizzlers give us painstaking directions to the Brewery Tap despite my Google Maps insistence.
At least it was all downhill from here (literally I mean) despite Miss Lancaster cruelly recommending two pubs even further up. Not today! Not GBG anyway.
I knew it was right to trust Google Maps, it even took us the scenic route through the museum and gardens .... reminded me a bit of Rochester weirdly.
The frontage wasn't much to write home about, but once inside Bewdley Brewery Tap, Bewdley (3246 / 5733), the most fabulous blast of cold air from the overhead air conditioning unit hits us and by crikey, I'm struggling to think of a better brewery tap in the entirity of BRAPA history .... it really is THAT good. Their local 6% mild was a bold choice, but I didn't regret it. Damson pow! Shame the goons on Untwappd find it impossible to enjoy it for what it is without comparing it less favourably to the famous iconic Sarah Hughes Ruby Mild GOAT. Look. it is possible to enjoy both ya massive dorks, this ain't Messi v Ronaldo ya huge twerps! Daddy BRAPA is even more in awe of the place than me, his pub of the day, and he's gone for a pint of the Robbie's Cider which isn't from Stockport. An almost complete collection of GBG's and enough framed local CAMRA awards to sink a battleship stare at us. And every so often, an alarm on someone's table goes 'beep beep beep' and they rush outside, returning with a pizza whrn I thought they were all A&E nurses on call. Incredible scenes. Charlie Hughes in brewery tap form (piss off Coventry, NOT FOR SALE).
Good news, our final two pubs of the day were both t'other side of the Severn where the SVR station is, we were making amazing progress, surely a late Kiddie tick or two on the cards to supplement these?
Bad news, this next walk was a painful one in this heat but we took it steady, put our hats and suncream on to stave off the threat of skin cancer, and found it set back from the main road looking all brash, uncompromising and full of charm ....
The locals are huddled into a tiny postage stamp sized right hand bar caterwauling and shrieking in some nasally sandpaper tones, so we make a bee-line for the quiet larger left side. Old Waggon & Horses, Bewdley (3247 / 5734) again wins staff points, top lass, good 'cooling fan' bantz, and she puts up with my immense surprise on seeing Batham's Bitter in a non Batham's pub. "Is it even legal?" Ever since I learned 'Bitter' is the locals choice, and it is only the pub tourists who go for the Mild, I've developed a real thirst and appreciation for it, and it is in fine voice here like an elderly Pompey fan. Despite the cool fan at the bar, this was the pub that most struggles to keep us cool so a point off for that. Dad positions us strategically behind a wall so we can smuggle our scotch eggs out of view before they get any hotter- you can't teach experience like that. One of my claims to fame is the late great Alan Winfield once telling me off for eating my own snacks in a Falmouth pub. But then totally backing down when I challenged him on it #PubMan . Ivor Panda wilts in the heat and has a sip of Daddy's J20. Time to go. Would be my favourite pub in 95% of Norfolk or Dumfries & Galloway towns, but the quality in Bewdley was such that I'd rank it in fifth. What a town!
Our final tick was right next to the station ..... though without a discernible pub sign, we kinda had to hope we were entering the right building.
But right at the last second, we spy a blackboard with the pub name on, phew!
'Pupsicles', summer dog menu, ugh! But fear not, the Great Western, Bewdley (3248 / 5735) was more akin to the Wolverhampton pub of the same name than my imagined Marlow Bottom / Gullane ponce-hole that a 'dog forward' pub often produces. Pretty spartan in the main, slightly Wild West. I was actually getting Lloyds No. 1 vibes with the upstairs balcony level with a background 'Guildford' menace, though part of it was mirrored, so not as spacious as I'd first thought. The beer was kicking in. The barman gives me a keen, untrusting glare, and pulls me a strange local pale which drinks grassy and a bit sweaty. But like the pub itself, cool, and that was pretty much my only priority now. We're ridiculously ahead of schedule, barely gone 3pm. "Let's relax then" I tell Dad. "Yes, but not too much" he replies. It'd prove wise words.
Because back at the SVR, Euston we have a problem. No trains running because a field is on fire somewhere close to the line and arson is strongly suspected, uh oh! Thankfully Dad's packed two giant flasks of weak orange drink.
And because everyone working here is a cute elderly volunteer, communication ain't great, buses ain't regular or close by, and vague talk of 'a fleet of replacement taxis' never materialises.
We wait patiently, Dad goes to listen to a diesel engine, we must be stranded well over an hour before we finally get some good news. And even then, takes another half an hour to depart .....
Suddenly, that 'easy' sixth Kidderminster tick looks tricky for our connection back to Brum New St.
So we play it safe and having been all Craven'd out in recent months, head for Dad's favourite Moor St. railway archer .... the one which makes him turn into a hipster Kenneth Williams, Kilder.
A couple of fizzy fruity pints of Verdant follow in the courtyard, I'm incredibly sober again due to the long gap since pint five and the sheer amount of water I've drunk in the meantime, and young people keep brushing past our table to find a toilet that doesn't exist, and then apologising to us for no reason on the way back. Gen Z - unnecessarily lovely people.
Carry on pubbing, Si
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