BRAPA .... GOOD FRIDAY IN WOLVERHAMPTON : DID JESUS DIE FOR THIS?

First off, I'm having a Wix nightmare because I receive an error message when trying to add photos. No idea why. It was fine pre-Sussex. Three hrs I been on the troubleshooting steps. Even contacting them is difficult, and their AI chatbot as useful as me after a Parcel Yard ESB. So I'm afraid it is a photo-less blog. I'll add them in later if & when it gets fixed. Sorry.

Friday 18th April 2025

Weighing heavily on my conscience for quite some time now, the knowledge that I'd visited all Wolverhampton's easy central stuff (Great Western, Posada, Lych Gate Tavern etc.) but had FOUR gaps in my ticking, all splayed out at various angles across the 'burbs like a dude on a cross.

I was suffering on this grey and occasionally drizzly morning, not through stigmata but dehydration. I'd failed to buy enough water the previous evening, so first port of call was Morrisons in the funny little town of Willenhall where folks look so gloomy, do they realise it's a Bank Holiday at all?

<Photo of soft drinks range in Mozzas>

I lean on a wall and sup my Apple and Elderflower Vit-Hit and a 1981 era bloke with the same moustache as Patrick Powell from Prisoner Cell Block H nods in sympathy. Then it is pub time, one of those uncompromising early openers .....

<pub one, Three Crowns>

So this was where the Willenhall party was. 11:10am and pub is well stocked with pungent old chaps enjoying their ale. Three Crowns, Willenhall (3062 / 5547) is new to the GBG, hard to believe on this showing. A scruffy but quite brilliant side street boozer which has almost certainly been here for eternity. The two blokes behind the bar are first class. "Yow's CAMRA?" asks bloke #1. I reach for my card. "Thought he was ID'ing ya bab!" says bloke #2. "I wish!" says I. RetiredMartin received similar treatment on his recent visit here, not sure about the ID confusion though. 40p off, and the Derby Mercia drinks great, though I felt extra sheepish ordering an IPA when everyone else is on the 6.66% Beast. A L**ds fan wanders in, exclaims he's a L**ds fan (no one asked) and delivers a half-coherent monologue about how kind he finds the locals in this pub. But when I look up, he's stood alone in the centre of the room and everyone else is going about their business. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

<indoor pic of some pub ruggedness>

Back at the bus stop, I join the other crushed urchins on the service back to Wolverhampton and back at the bus station, a mad dash allows me to make the next no. 15 which dumps me in a row of shops off the old Penn Road, south of town.

A surprise cute leafy lane with no pavement (good training for W.Sussex I guess) leads me to our second ...

<shit pic of front of club>

'By the hairs on my unshaved chinny chin chin, please let me in!', well I am in Wolves so impersonating a wolf made sense to me at Penn Bowling & Social Club, Wolverhampton (3063 / 5548). I had to do my CAMRA confessional whilst lurking in the function room, then I was buzzed into a lounge-like green club room, chairs laid out cinema style to watch that Hollywood Blockbuster, Stoke v Derby. I sit on the back row, pray Derby equalise. It is starting to look like it might go to the wire re Hull City and relegation. I didn't have popcorn but Salopian Golden Thread and herein lay my only problem - a poor pint. Not from the start, but later on. But a real one off from what so many other folk have told me since. Such friendly owners, guv'nor is on top of me about a forthcoming beer fest. Locals asked me to take photo of their little gang (I took three). Lady talking about brandy balloons, and like so many others, I thought she was filling balloons with brandy for a special party. Real good place.

<pic from inside da club>

Worked out I could walk to pub three, so that was a bonus. Bit of a trek, but not awful, desperate for wee when I arrived but when am I not? And that Vit-Hit had given me extra bladder pressure.

<starting gate looking morose from outside>

I've always been incredibly suspicious of Wolverhampton micros since I went to Hail to the Ale a few years back, found it bang average, then saw it win a host of awards and everyone was raving about it and I'm like 'no one from Wolverhampton has ever been to Thanet have they?' So no surprise I find Starting Gate, Wolverhampton (3064 / 5549) a gloomy non-entity where I had to make my own entertainment in the first half - buying a pork pie from Dudley to go with my freezing pint, imagining the cabinet at the bottom of the stairs is haunted, and exploring around the spiral staircase going up a level. But I was kidding myself really, only human interaction could save this one. And thankfully later on, a gorgeous couple I'd chatted to briefly in the Penn club arrived (possibly part of photo gang), gave me free local pub and travel advice, loved BRAPA, and basically saved my experience from total ignominy. "Don't linger in Whitmore Reans after dark" was their ominous parting message.

<inside SG, maybe my pork pie, maybe the haunted cab.>

But before I hit ominous WR, there was a necessary re-visit which was also a perfect halfway stop off point between there and the Starting Gate ..... and it, you won't be surprised to hear, was pub of the day.

<Combermere looking lovely>

So on a hot summer's day in 2017 flanked on both sides by the legendary Tom 'Clag Monster' Irvin, we rushed to tick Combermere Arms on the way back in to town from some dire Ember where the staff threatened to 'firebomb' a couple's house, so I only had time for a half here. Well, that's not very Brappery of me is it? Hence today's required revisit. I'd remembered multi rooms and an indoor tree, but it outperforms my memory of it. Less hot and chaotic today. A no nonsense guv, Irish twang? Everyone follows suit and employs a sort of Black Country Irish burr. An 'artist in residence' woman in same room as me is quite smiley. The smell of paint, distant DIY and local radio reminds me of doing a school project about St Austell in 1994 (had to draw a Dormouse, Mum's idea), but not in a bad way. Great to see the Tim Taylor Landlord on such good form. Oh, and the outdoor gents, so that is where the tree is. Amazing, you could enjoy your pint in here whilst having an extended tree-wee. Video Killed the Radio Star, Buggles. This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Pom-Pom Bus, Sparks (misheard lyrics when I was young). Job's a good un'.

<Tree and another indoor classic>

A tonal shift follows as I make my way to my official fourth tick. Only five on today's list.

Halfway up a street, a dog howls. A man buries something or someone under his patio Trevor Jordache style. Someone tries to sells drugs to a toddler. Yes, I'd reached Whitmore Reans where I'd enjoyed a pub previously, can't remember the name. This one is less good, but acceptable .....

<summer house looking ready for anything>

Summer House, Wolverhampton (3065 / 5550) was almost South London in its styling, what with a smell of olives, wet paint and Thai green curry. Good Friday must be annual 'paint your pub' day in Wolves or something. Clompy and bare boarded, took ages to find a staff member willing to serve me, and genuine surprise to have a customer at this ungodly hour of mid afternoon on a Friday Bank Holiday .... but hang on, 4pm opener .... I'll let them off on that last point then. That Enville Ale with the bee on the clip .... I know you all love it, but not for me Clive. A struggle. Always. I keep trying it in the hope that one day, I too can be as traditionally West Mids as you lot. Should've gone Proper Job, I know I like that. And every time I swerve it in 2025, I get banged. Not literally. There's a late flurry of custom on the Indian food, but it was time I left. After all, Whitmore Reans after dark is a no-no.

<inside summer house, maybe that untopped up Enville pint>

One to go, too far to walk today, not on a direct bus route, but only three miles away. So an Uber made sense, and although I can't remember much about Ali, but I gave him 5 stars, because if you give them less, you have to explain why, which is a total nonsense if you ask me. Imagine if beer scoring was like that!

<Keg & C looking vaguely promising>

Considering how unimpressed my previous two Wolverhampton micro outings had left me, I was hardly expecting something with a name as utterly abysmal as Keg & Comfort (3066 / 5551) to pull up any trees, inside loos or not. Give me a Cask & Arseache any day, but you know what, the best or the trio so far! Helped immeasurably by a cracking Titanic Plum Porter, which had come just at the right time, being last pub of the day n all. It is rather chilly within, and whilst there's plenty of punters, there's a nervous hush about the place. Everyone's sat individually, staring straight ahead, or painting Easter eggs. Slightly clinical, but there's a humorous undercurrent I cannot shake - I want to laugh, might be pint five effect. Peer into the local's eyes, you'll find some very nice people in here. One lady lifts the mood by suggesting I should join her on the three third wooden paddle things. Now, I find the idea of drinking beer in this way a crime against humanity, it is beer, not fucking Woolies Pick n Mix, but I smile politely and ask where her Plum Porter is, and she says she'll need to come back for that one. So in conclusion, I'm still not convinced Wolverhampton really 'gets' the micro concept, for all its brilliant older pubs and decent ale scene around this overly huge town.

<inside, maybe awful paddles, maybe my pint, who knows>

A bus takes me straight down the line towards the bus station, which is handily placed for the trains, which is handily placed for Stafford where I'm stopping. So after a yummy Tesco shop, I decide on an early night. After all, Daddy BRAPA was joining me tomorrow morn for a Newcastle-under-Lyme / Potteries mop-up day.

I'll tell you about that on Sunday, photos or not! Apologies again.

Si