I figured I would try and jot down a quick account of what I remember.
Me and Dave arrived in Birmingham and strolled round to the Briar Rose, once again I am impressed with Dave's preparation, he has clearly used street view to try and get a feeling for the area, but is somewhat thrown by the lack of
people administering first aid down an alley. Moving past this lack of landmark though we successfully find the Briar Rose.
The Briar Rose is a tidy enough pub, a fairly typical Wetherspoons, slightly haphazard service, food that is so-so, and all nicely cheap. Having lined our stomachs we moved on to try and meet up for the pub crawl.
Into
The Wellington, an interesting pub, a busy bar with a sensible display to show their full selection of 16 real ales. We meet up with everyone and start with a pint of Butty Bach. Strangely Gill proved to be the easiest one to spot and we swiftly realised a large group had already gathered. Trainman had a few friends with him who aren't regular posters to the site which would swiftly lead to some slight confusion. Anyway, we got chatting with Quinno before being accosted by one of the people I had thought was with Trainman. Oh how wrong I was, it swiftly became apparent that this was someone who was unfortunately very drunk and looking to make friends. Strangely this seemed to involve a bemusing string of insults that was a little unexpected whilst sober and at lunch. Happily Quinno proves to be a dab hand at handling this and I am given to understand from Dave that Quinno escorted him to the bar then the exit
. As people are introduced the decision to actually make it into a crawl is pushed on and some start the long journey to the next pub.
Being part of the later group I nervously move on wondering at the size of Birmingham, out of the back door across the alley and into the back door of
The Old Joint Stock. Due to my careful timing I successfully fake my way out of a pint in this pub by being a late arrival, but marvel at the decor, palatial is the best description and well worth checking out the internal shot by Walter Dunlop if you have not been there. The decision is made at this point to head to the most distant target to take advantage of our more sober state.
Onward to the
Bartons Arms. Another impressive pub preceded by an impressive journey. Assured that we should be getting a bus to get there and that the cheapest method would be to 'pair off into groups of 5' (again this confused Dave for a little while). Storming off down the road we all followed Gill who determinedly seemed to know our target, strolling past a bus stop we cluster at the end of the road gazing along it reading bus numbers. I briefly wonder if we have already drunk too much and the list tickers have changed profession to bus spotting, mumblings of dissent and word associations involving 'brewery' can be heard in the background as the fateful bus appears at the end of the road and we rush off towards the bus stop. I suddenly realise that we are choosing the bus stop based on the first bus to appear and all becomes clear
. Happily the journey is swift and we arrive at the Bartons Arms which has a good selection of Ales and again is an amazing pub to look round (it is worth looking at rpadam's recent photo additions, spectacular efforts although I am left wondering how he got people to move out of a couple of the shots
). A&H kindly gets me and Dave halves of Inferno that we sup on, drinking these far too swiftly we decide to try out halves of the Aston's MILD in honour of the alleged imminent arrival of Soup Dragon. As we are served the whisper goes round that he is about to walk through the door, and the MILD legend arrives to a round of applause. It is pointed out at this point that we need to get the group photo to remember the day with, a barman is convinced to come outside and Quinno contributes his camera with a brief lesson on how to use it (I would say it isn't rocket science but I would be lying). We all gather up, posing as we receive protestations to smile, anticipation building the barman clicks on the button and the camera switches off
. Happily somewhere in amongst it all the excellent photo that is already posted gets taken. Before leaving AEM starts on a pattern that will emerge during the crawl as he successfully convinces the lovely barmaid to wear a PuG t-shirt (GURLS).
Next target is
The Anchor in Digbeth fearfully involving a couple of bus journeys. Sadly they were completely uneventful (well the first was, me and Dave walked the second leg). Walking into the pub we find that Soup has stormed off ahead and got his drink in, we soon find out why - '
What will you have?', '
Soup, what are you having?', '
The MILD', '
We'll have 2 halves of MILD please', '
He's had the last pint',
. So Dave orders 2 halves of Mad Goose to which we receive our 2 pints
, we decide it must be our mistake and sacrifice ourself to drinking them
(as an aside the Mad Goose swiftly ran out leaving AEM with a very cloudy effort that they kindly replaced with another drink). Oh and 'GURLS', AEM strikes again to convince the lovely barmaid to wear a PuG t-shirt.
On to
The White Swan. This one ended up with a small division of the group as some decided to move on to the next stop as there was a limited selection of Real Ales. Me & Dave had halves of the MILD offering whilst sat in the back room chatting to Andy Ven. A lovely little cubby with a coal fire going, very relaxing and a great area to socialise. Strikingly for me it was another pub with grand amounts of tiling, as I pointed out rather vulgarly to Soup later on the crawl the only time I ever see tiles in Bristol is when I go to the toilet, every other pub we went in seemed to be fully tiled.
Another brief stroll to get to
The Lamp Tavern. For some reason I really struggled to remember this one. Dave can't quite remember what he ordered here, apparently there were 2 real ales on, and he couldn't bring himself to order 2 halves of the moustache, so got 2 halves of whatever the other was. It was a very busy pub and we propped up the end of the bar continuing to chat to Andy Ven, whilst hemming some poor soul in against the wall.
Onwards again this time to
The Old Fox. At this point I accepted my defeat and switched to an OJ, Dave had the beer with 3 letters (I ordered it and have no idea what it was). Some lovely stained glass Foxes in this nice big pub. A debate about geography and BCG jabs ensued between Dave, me, Quinno and PaulofHorsham, one vaccination on the way to Quinno for Christmas
. Oh yes and 'GUUUURR....', wait a second though, that's a bloke. AEM broke a perfectly good pattern to ensure that the fine young barman was wearing a PuG t-shirt (someone took a photo, so evidence of this one may appear).
And finally full circle back to the Wellington, following a stumbling (although I still maintain it was a very straight stumbling) RogerB. I believe it was also Roger who kindly got me and Dave a half each of Fire-something, or to put it another way, got Dave a pint of Fire-something (thanks to the purchaser and apologies if it was not Roger). Have to admit to enjoying the Wellington a little less this time as it was a complete crush and constant elbowings to get by as we cluttered up the walkway. Enjoyed a bit of a chat with Soup who agreed to join us in our misery of watching a Bristol City match. Oh and of course 'GURLS' as in a final strike AEM once again gets the barmaid to wear a PuG t-shirt. Realising time was up though we left and met AEM on the platform to travel back to Bristol.
All in all a fantastic inaugural PuG crawl which seemed to have universal agreement that it must be repeated within the year. I had a fantastic time meeting everyone and it was a genuine pleasure chatting. Faces were put to names, beer was imbibed and the World set to rights.
Sorry for not saying goodbye to Andy, and apologies to anyone I didn't chat too properly, I would have just spoken rubbish anyway
.
Cheers everyone!