BRAPA IS .... BEACON DUE : A REAL GONE KID & LOSING MY DIGNITY AFTER A PINT OF SARAH HUGHES
Saturday 29th June, 14:25
I'm sure I labour over these blog titles longer than it takes me to write the damn things.
So let us leave Woodsetton's wonderful Park Inn and refer to my detailed map once more .....
Interesting! So bus 229 should take us back to Sedgley along the A457 for today's DESTINATION pub, the one that everyone told me to visit when I was ticking off Brum and Walsall late last autumn.
But the bus is still in Dudley (the town, not the duck), so we set off walking. I need a wee so find an inlet behind a bush. I'm getting a bit anxious about the pub's 3pm closure (it is nearly 2:30pm), so with Daddy BRAPA taking it slow in the increasing heat, we agree I march ahead and get the drinks in. High octane BRAP this!
The tardy bus trundles around the corner just as I'm crossing the road in front of the pub, so I'd lost no time, but not really gained any either.
Scaffold clad, but the Beacon Hotel, Sedgley (2897 / 5057) is allowed because it has a heritage star. How to look like a first time visitor? 'Coo', 'ooh' and 'ahh' in the central wooden corridor looking in vain for a bar. Staff smirk, in a jolly way, not a pisstakery one, fine distinction. Hatch it is, like in t'olden days. I can only see two beers, but one is Sarah Hughes Ruby Mild so all bets are off, and all its 6% hair on the chest goodness. Good job Dad isn't here yet, he might try and wimp out of it. Two pints, boof, I wonder if the barmaid is called Sarah Hughes? She looks like one. Maybe the pub makes any new employees change their name by deed poll? They should. Dad joins me in a delicious basic side room, Sam Smith's beermats and a man shuffling around with a mystery box, probably a tortoise, cos you can say it in a West Midlands accent. Dad thinks it is stuffy, like 90% of pubs he enters during the summer, so we find a crazy beer garden, half kids playground and bloke with a 1980's JVC ghettoblaster banging out the Stock, Aitken and Waterman and Deacon Blue (probably). Pub loses something of its heritage at this point, but with the Ruby Mild knocking me out in the sun, and cracking outdoor urinals, tis still very pleasant. And then the moment I've been waiting for as the mid-afternoon last orders bell sounds. Always worry it is merely a myth.
Sarah Hughes, is that you?
Tortoise on vinyl?
The vintage ear protecting hat is out!
#BadgeIn Col
Not a long walk to our sixth and penultimate pub, but significantly, in a northerly Wolvesy direction .....
C'mon mate, if you're in shot, BRAPA pose please
Just when you thought today might starting winding down in terms of pub quality, enter Mount Pleasant, Sedgley (2898 / 5058) into the 'pub of the day' chat. Overshadowed by its famous neighbour perhaps, but just as good in our opinion. Daddy BRAPA did have a gripe over 'older man invisibility'. A definite thing he tells me when you reach a 'certain' age. I order an Oakham Citra then dash off to the loo leaving Dad to pay. He expertly decides it is cob time and gets us two C&O's and a J20 for himself, I then return and ask him for one too as that Sarah Hughes Ruby Mild (or SHRuM as Dad calls it) has got my head swimming. Although he's been doing all the ordering, when I return from loo, it is me whom the barmaid who asks to pay / converses with, like he's simply my broker or something! But his gentle fury doesn't last long Despite the busy main bar I'm confident that this multi-roomed carpetted cosy hole must have a private BRAPA back room, and it does. The J20 offers hope, the C&O cob restores, and the Citra closes the book of drunken feelings. I declare myself sober ready for the bus back into Wolverhampton ......
Can you see the invisible man?
Happy and visible again!
.... but not as sober as I thought, Dad quickly notices I've left my rucksack in the pub! Only one woman to blame, Sarah Hughes.
I dash back, and we've just crossed the road when the bus storms down the road so I start jogging, hold out a flailing arm, and thankfully he stops and makes a kind nasally noise as we board.
That means we definitely have time for a SEVENTH tick before we head back to New Street. Because despite five zillion BRAPA trips to Wolverhampton, I still have one to do close to the station.
It might be my still fuzzy state, but the Lych Gate Tavern, Wolverhampton (2899 / 5059) felt a bit like a hall of mirrors, an exciting topsy turvy affair, brought to you by the wonderful Black Country Ales (though if it is true they want to bin off the Wellington's cats Malt & Hops.....well, you can go off some people!) Not as loungy and sweeping as most in the chain, despite an excellent 8/10 carpet, and if Dad was stuffy in the Beacon, he must be here cos I am, so I suggest we sit outside and he jumps at it. We find this fantastic courtyard, craning our necks up at all these Gothic old buildings, it was like being in some leading European city. Has Wolverhampton ever been described in this way before? No idea what beer I ordered, but it a strong dark struggle. Eventually we decide it is Brum time.
The journey soaks up some more of today's beer, and with time still on our side, we head out to one of my favourite two Birmingham pubs, probably because they are just off centre, the Craven Arms (the other is the Bull).
The cherry and vanilla Twist & Stout drinks exceedingly well, and Switzerland are doing amazing things against Italy which might be interesting if we beat Slovakia the next day, because I'm due to meet a Switzerland fan in SW London the day we'd play them! More on that in my next blog on Friday.
Comments