BRAPA in .... SMETHWICK GALTON BRIDGE MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK

Saturday 17th May 2025

The annual post-season outing was upon us, exploring the GBG pubs in that Stourbridge-Wolverhampton corridor with Daddy BRAPA.

I marvel at the quality in this area time and time again. How is it that, nearly 70% of the way through my GBG ticking, this place has churned out SEVEN new Black Country / Batham's / Holden's / AN Other ticks to keep me occupied?

Our main issue early on was the weather. Overcast and darn chilly. We'd arrived in our tee shirts and shorts (we'd packed jackets but that ain't the point!), having been promised a warm sunny 23 degree day from the get-go. Dad was positively incandescent in his rage "..... and I blame that bloody woman on the BBC, Sarah Keith-Lucas!"

After his warming pee in Sedgley 'Spoons (which we ticked last year), we trot up to the new entry, right on time for 12 noon opening, and it was prompt with its door unlocking .....

Now, I'm probably not qualified to say as a one time visitor, but considering how much I LOVED last year's Mount Pleasant even more than the famous Beacon (don't @ me) , I'm astonished to see this White Lion Inn, Sedgley (3135 / 5620) replacing it in the GBG for 2025. It ain't shite, the Salopian is passable, locals a bit nervy and twitchy, but is a rather tired basic non-entity of a pub on this showing. Gimme it over dining dross any day, but it felt yer typical GBG '25 selection - a bit 'off the wall'. All the fun comes at the bar. Cheese n onion confusion. Dad wants crisps. A good call. Breakfast was a long time ago. I ask for the mini cheddars, quickly changing my mind to the 'c&o crinklys', so Dad asks for C&O crisps, thinking he's about to get the same as me, but our very helpful friendly landlady takes him at 'crisp value', says they don't have any at the bar, he tries to say 'whaddya mean, I can see them!' but she dashes off to a store cupboard to root around, leaving Dad perplexed. I try and explain what I think has happened. She returns triumphantly brandishing a bag of green 'Real' crisps. Now that's service. And Dad does comment that he can taste that store cupboard freshness!

Back to the bus stop on the main road, and we chug along to Upper Gornal where we enjoyed the Jolly Crispin last year. But the Batham's rota, which I'm sure the local CAMRA's employ, deems it a 'Brittania year' and produces our pub of the day ......

I've been to enough Batham's not to be surprised by now, but WHAT A PUB the Brittainia, Upper Gornal (3136 / 5621) is, my second favourite I've been to after the Bull & Bladder / Vine. My old mate Minneapolis Cask makes a great point when he says "you can tell that they know you aren't one them from the second you walk into one of their pubs" Yep, you can't feign 'Black Country #PubMan-ness around here, though Dad specifying 'BATHAM'S Best Bitter' and me following it up by asking barmaid 'the locals tend to choose bitter over the mild, right?' meant all bets were off anyway! And this after I'd got excited, thought the Christmas Special ale was on, only for them to quickly turn the pump clip around! Sat in the main bar, old men are furious about the weather. They don't mention Sarah Keith-Lucas but it was heavily implied. Dad explores the gaff, reading in my GBG about the historically important taproom at the rear, but it is full of people (another great thing about Batham's pubs, always full of folk but never uncomfortably so) but we find an empty one with dartboard which is also delicious. Dad then observes what he calls 'the 12:54pm seat manoeuvre' when one old bloke gets up and leaves, and another takes his place within in a second, no reaction, like it has happened every day for 300 years. Super pub.

Seat on the right is 12:54 manoeuvre seat if you wondered

A bit of jiggery-pokery next as we have to change bus routes onto the 17 down Jew's Lane. Slight delay, but soon we are on our way to Kingswinford for TWO new ticks here, having enjoyed a freezing but brilliant Black Country Ales experience a couple years back called the Bridge Inn.

Neither of today's pub were quite that good, in fact when I Googled the first during my BRAPA planning, this amusing little piece popped up .....

It adds a layer of intrigue in my mind .... besides, 2023 is a long time ago, there may be no trace of mouse upheaval ....

Though the 'lease this pub - refurbishment planned' sign, bigger than the inn sign, perhaps contradicts that. Welcome to Cottage, Kingswinford (3137 / 5622) and good grief, if ever a pub has felt on a downward trajectory despite a high quality pint and a great host, it was here. A 'custodian' really (keeper of the ale?), he explains that he used to run this joint back in the day and has come out of retirement in their hour of need, in light of "...the recent, errrm, Troubles" and I'm thinking, calm down mate, it was three mice, not the IRA. The vast array of handpumps provide just the one ale, Butty Bach. Not a beer I like much but he tells me that in light of the pub struggling to get people in, it is the only way to maintain quality. And he ain't wrong, this is the best Butty Bach I've ever tasted! The pub, apart from us, is almost totally empty, and the atmosphere feels sad. There's a shell of a real good pub here, let us hope it returns to glory one day. I'd give the carpet an 8.

Just up the road, Kingswinford pub two - and I just cannot say Kingswinford as Daddy B. would testify - Kingswinceford, Kingwingsford, Kinswinsingfords, I just can't get the word out!

Not a fan of this mini-chain, they all look like bookies to me, but at least this version of the Ale Hub, Kingswinford (3138 / 5623) had a modicum of warmth and comfort which immediately raises it about their Mere Green vehicle, and possibly others I've erased from my mind. And only two beers on here, hardly the 'hub of ale' (which you'd assume was their key selling point, over anything cosily pubby) - one is Butty Bach, so I pick t'other which is something to do with Shakespeare (William, not Craig or the Sisters). 'Tis a good drop. After the Cottage, the pub feels positively vibrant. But was it? Decent Paul Simon tunes. I pop into the ladies loo cos Big John from Stockport is having a sesh in the single Gents cubicle. And I introduce Daddy BRAPA to the joys of Apple Music / Spotify, persuading him a subscription is worth it because you have ABBA's 'Lay All Your Love on Me' at your fingertips!

Our bus (or did we walk this next leg, I cannot remember?) trundles south on to Wordsley. Another re-visit where the New Inn and Bird in Hand had impressed me back in 2023, but OF COURSE it threw up something new .....

Lasting this long before our first Black Country Ales pub is an achievement in itself in this part of the world, but fair to say we're both impressed by Queen's Head, Wordsley (3139 / 5624) from the off. One sip of the Carningli from Pembrokeshire and Dad is like "by gum, beer of t'day so far!" and hard to disagree - though it is marred slightly as being Welsh, I'd read it at Carningll and gone for the 'll' pronunciation (#RespectTheWelshLanguage) and I think the barmaid thought I had something stuck in my throat! Soon I actually did! Daddy B. buys us two cheese and onion cobs - he really is in a cheese & onion state of mind (Billy Joel b-side?) today. And as I'm prone to do, a bit gets stuck in my throat and takes a bit of hacking up in the gents! It had the bog standard BCA carpet (6.5/10), they need to be more 'Spoons with their carpets, my main criticism of the chain.

Another hop back on the bus / walk takes us to pub six, haven't we made great progress - no need to worry about getting back to Brum for our train home now, surely? (WATCH THIS SPACE)

Another fine BCA outlet was the Starving Rascal, Amblecote (3140 / 5625). We might be rascals, but we weren't starving anymore after our cobs. A fourth tick and a third BRAPA excursion to Amblecote, following on from 2018's successful Robin Hood & Swan duo, and more recently, the Red Lion, which was ok but didn't butter my parsnips in quite the same manner. A 3.4% ale was very welcome at this stage, cheers Attic whoever you are. The steep decent to the loo is Central-London-esque (don't break your neck) and the cup final is on. Man City have Palace pegged back in their own half, near total dominance. "Where's this fast free-flowing break away football I always see Palace doing on MOTD?" I remark to Dad. And before I've finished my sentence, ping, ping, PING. Ball is in net at other end! I'm so chuffed, I tell a bloke all about it when he comes over to ask the score. He sees my GBG, falls immediately in love with the idea of pub ticking, and we chat to him for probably far too long. Yes, the day started to unravel here in the Starving Rascal .....

With the benefit of hindsight, we should've declared here on my regulation six ticks and headed back to Brum. But I had a new tick in Stourbridge, next town down, where we're getting the train from anyway. Would be rude not to wouldn't it?

But Stourbridge isn't quite as close on foot as I'd remembered, and suddenly bus timings aren't so kind either, so we Uber it to speed us up, top work from Muhammad Jameel, a 4 minute journey. Back on track. Sort of.

Handsome looking inn and as you can see above, Dad owns it (not literally). Once more, BCA deliver at Queen's Head, Stourbridge (3141 / 5626). They even have a unique carpet, though it is rather too mind bending for pint seven so I'm going to have to mark it down to a 7/10 for that, when ordinarily, it'd be an 8. There are lots of unthreatening pale beers on I'm glad to see through a clutter of empties - well two Schwepps tonic waters judging by below! I select the grandddaddy of them all, Oakham Citra, and I'm not disappointed. Perhaps more evidence we are pushing our luck timewise is that we arrive during that Saturday late afternoon / early evening lull. Casual FA Cup final watchers have largely dispersed, and the Eurovision (more on that later) crowd are at home doing their fierce eyeliner. And if anything of note did happen, I'm certainly not qualified to remember it!

Then it is a race across Stourbridge to get the little chugger from Town to Junction. We make it! But just when we think we've done the hard part, we incorrectly leap down the subway when OF COURSE the connecting Brum train was just across the platform. My fault really. And now we're missing our Brum connection and probably be charged a fortune.

Ugh, we hop aboard the next train towards Brum anyway after some delay, Dad resigned to defeat but I still feel mad at myself, so keep prodding about on the Trainline app and then EUREKA! We can change at Smethwick Galton Bridge and make up the time to get our original train. Cue jubilant scenes!

All goes smoothly after that, back in York feeling sober again, sort of, I pop into Sainsbury's to buy some snacks, get home, pop on Eurovision from the start - because even though it is nearly always shite and disappointing, it has become a TRADITION I must uphold .....

Well, I manage to eat about 5 Pringles, two olives, and the remnants of my Wordsley cob (bottom centre!), drink a thimble of Romanian wine, but about a litre of low sugar Sainsbury's Lilt rip-off. And I make notes on each song, for no apparent reason .....

It finishes about 3am (my time!) It had been a day. I don't think I moved much on Sunday.

Si