I’ve already written about my week volunteering at GBBF, but it was lovely to catch up with J Mark Dodds during the week and of course Julian. I nominated Mark to be a director of CAMRA’s NEC and I was delighted that he was elected.
Category: Birmingham
-
Volunteering at the Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) 2025
I’ve volunteered at Norwich Beer Festival for over a decade (and on a separate note, I’m delighted that that’s going ahead this year albeit in a slightly different form because of the delays to the Halls repairs) so I decided this year to come and volunteer at the Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) for a week. I arrived early on the Sunday morning and was given the H&S briefing given that the NEC hall was a construction site at that point. Hi-vis jacket and steel toe shoes later, I was ready for action, hoping that they didn’t want me to do anything construction related.
I was tasked with helping set up the Breweriana stall, a word (Breweriana, not stall, that I had to think about how to spell and pronounce). I discovered that this meant old books, old glasses and brewery memorabilia so I merrily decided to ask to stay all week, meaning that they were stuck with me for the whole event. I was pleased that the managers and staffing agreed to this, but it was definitely an excellent decision.
It looked chaotic at this point, but the two stand managers knew what they wanted to achieve.
Starting to put the old glasses on the shelving units. I’m pleased to say I didn’t break any glasses all week.
Woooo, glasses from Norwich Beer Festival, and it was possibly me that sold them in the first place.
The stand coming together.
We had a lot of bottles of unopened beer which sold well and here’s an early bottle of Adnams Broadside.
Volunteer food options were a little limited due to NEC restrictions, but, fortunately, a quick walk to the monorail to get to Birmingham Airport meant I could get to Greggs and M&S. I was located near to the hotel, as CAMRA had paid for some rooms at the Hilton located at the NEC and that meant I didn’t have to trek back into the city centre every day.
Funky Fluid! Europe’s best brewer.
Twas ever thus.
There was live music during the event and I think it’s fair to say that this did not surprise and delight me. Not because of the quality of the bands and singers themselves, but just because the noise was a bit loud and the building acoustics are terrible as it wasn’t really designed to be a concert hall. I’m not sure that even the Wurzels would have sounded good in here.
Thanks to Roy and Jen for bringing me four Greggs chicken bakes from the company’s outlet store.
The hot dog at the staff party at the end of the event. The actual hot dog isn’t visible, but was rather lovely. Note the healthy salad.
There were seconds available later on, so I accidentally had another one and the staff forced a sausage roll on me as well.
The staff party taking place after the festival closed to the public. I’ve tried to avoid taking photos of people here, but as a sense of scale, this was the size of the volunteer area during the entire festival. We had a lot of space everywhere.
Inside the American beers storage area where I had numerous beers that did surprise and delight me. The Volunteer Arms had free beer and cider all week and it was rather lovely to try so many different beers during the week. For anyone wondering about whether they should volunteer, I’d very much recommend it.
The take-down of the stand took us around three hours and that was the end of that. This was the first time in a long while that GBBF didn’t take place in London and it was obviously risky moving it elsewhere, I hope it’s worked out well enough in Birmingham to have another event like this next year. It was great to meet new friends and I was fortunate to be included in a great team at my stall. It was lovely to see Mark, Simon, Susie, Bob and many others who I knew from the Star, not to forget the marvellous Julian, Roy and Jen from Norwich.
-
Birmingham NEC – Hilton Metropole Bar (Two Julians)
Two nights ago, as part of our brief national tour, Julian and I visited the Moxy hotel bar and it was frankly a positive and well thought through operation (the hotel, not Julian and I). They’d made an effort to work through the service, the environment and the drinks selection. Last night, we tried the Hilton Metropole bar to add some variety to proceedings. This is the slightly dirty environment that greeted us and it’s fair to say when I looked at the online food and drinks menu, I was not surprised and delighted. Well, I was surprised actually, but not for positive reasons.
The drinks selection was very poor and I don’t think I’ve pitched my expectations too high here. Even Travelodge, Ibis Budget, the YHA and Premier Inn offer some form of craft beer options, even if just in cans. The Hilton is a 795 room hotel, so they can easily offer a micropub, a whisky bar and indeed anything else they wanted. In this hotel, they’ve gone for some generic keg beers, with the nearest vague effort being Camden Pale. There were no real ales, craft beers, ales in bottles and no nod towards anything local. It feels like it’s a venue which seeks to make no contribution towards the local community in terms of its food and drink supplies, and that runs across all of their menus in the hotel.
The pricing is also hideous, a half pint is not much off the price of a full pint, which is just unnecessary greed and promotes excessive drinking. Pints are around £7 to £10 each. The service was clumsy, Julian’s pint was short measured and when they topped it up, they topped it up with the wrong beer. It’s that entire level of attention here that was evident throughout the service.
In fairness to the team members, who seemed to be doing their very best, the venue was cleaned up during our long visit. The manager and team members were apologising to customers as their order system had gone wrong and they couldn’t track orders to tables, which all felt a little sub-optimal.
This was the nearest drinkable beer or cider available, and it’s OK, but any hotel of any size should be doing more than this. Let’s read the exciting text on the Hilton’s website:
“We have specially selected craft beers, cocktails, and wines.”
That’s very likely written with AI, the Oxford Comma is an indicator but not a guarantee of that, but the rest of the text has an AI fake feel to it. But they do not have specially selected craft beers, let’s just leave it at that, unless a manager really believes that Becks is something they’ve specially selected for its quality.
As mentioned, the team members were evidently doing their best so I have no negative comment about that, although I suspect there are some training issues that could be easily resolved. However, the general product was horrendous, if they’re going for premium pricing then they need to keep the venue cleaner, there has to be a choice here about their aspirations. Thinking about the hotels I’ve visited over recent months, the beer selection here is one of the weakest and, on a wider level, for a venue of this size to entirely disengage with local suppliers is terrible. If I might humour my two loyal blog readers, this situation is really sub-optimal, I’m reminded of the number of Accor hotels that deliberately stock local beers, ciders, spirits and soft drinks, because they are proud of the community that they serve.
-
Birmingham NEC – Moxy Hotel Bar (Two Julians)
Julian and I are on tour at the moment, I’m volunteering at GBBF all week which is being held at the Birmingham NEC and Julian is practicing his drinking (I accept he doesn’t need much mroe practice). After the festival closed for the day, there aren’t really that many options at the NEC (well, no options) so we decided to pop to the Moxy Hotel bar despite me staying at the Hilton and Julian at the Premier Inn.
How sweet. We weren’t sure whether the hotel bar would be open, but it transpired that it was open until 02:00 and I think they’d only just finished serving food at 22:00.
Moxy Hotels are the Marriott chain aimed at millennials, so I consider that to be me, so I obviously liked it. I’m a bit confined to the Accor brand so I’ve never stayed at this chain, but I like the general concept and laid-back approach that’s offered here.
There were a fair few beer festival customers about, I’ve just chosen photos without people in them.
Motivational messaging.
I like this a lot and it’s designed to be a common area for guests, or indeed anyone, where they can work, drink, eat or relax. These things can easily slip into formulaic, but it seemed to be on the right side of quirky to me.
It’s design driven and I did wonder whether my excitement might fall when I reached the bar and saw the beer list.
It transpired that there were two beers from the Attic Brew Co and they’re an exhibitor at GBBF, so I assume they’ve had the foresight to go and place some of their cans in the hotel. This met my expectations as I didn’t want the excitement of a late-night Carling.
For the hard of hearing.
The Intuition from the Attic Brew Co and I rather liked this, tastes of stone fruit, juicy and quite punchy.
The Rollin Waves from the Attic Brew Co, I didn’t like this quite as much as it was rather dry, but there was still plenty of flavour.
The Gold Brummie from the local Birmingham Brewing Co, which was hoppy, light and fluffy (the beer, not Julian).
I think this was really quite an agreeable place. Their beer list is as long as their wine list, they’ve making an effort to try and not limit themselves to generic beers and the place did feel on-trend and comfortable. And it’s a handy place for anyone to visit after GBBF closes in the evening, or indeed, after any NEC event.
-
Acocks Green (Birmingham) – The Spread Eagle
At the weekend, slimline Richard and I thought that we’d pop to the Spread Eagle in Acocks Green near Birmingham. As usual, I’ll take the history of the pub name from the JD Wetherspoon web-site:
“Named after one of the oldest pubs in Warwickshire, which stood close by, until it was demolished in 1929, through road-widening, The Spread Eagle (the first pub) was pulled down in 1929. The green, far from being an age-old local landmark, was created in the early 1930s.”
The pub is located at the ‘413’ in the above map from the 1870s. It’s certainly all got a lot more developed in the area in the last 150 years.
One of the display boards in the pub mentioned Hancock’s Half Hour and this intrigued me. There’s no direct link between Tony Hancock (1924-1968) and the pub, but he did live in nearby Hall Green.
But, back to the food planning. Richard decided that he would treat himself to some toast which was the most that his diet would allow, and even that was pushing it. He ordered his toast and waited excitedly. I was pleased to discover that the pub was in the lowest JD Wetherspoon price band and so I went for a traditional breakfast and unlimited coffee.
My traditional breakfast was served promptly and just as a team member came over and said to Richard that they didn’t have any toast and they wondered if he would like anything else, as they assumed he wouldn’t want raw bread. The team member obviously didn’t really expect to have a customer come in that wasn’t really meant to be eating anything as decadent as toast, so there was little else that could be offered. Meanwhile, I had lost interest in his problems at this point as I had food to eat and although I would have rather had toast than raw bread myself, this food and unlimited coffee came in at under £5 so I didn’t feel the need to be overly disappointed. Full marks for the eggs still be runny and the bacon not being fatty. Richard was contemplating his entire day as his hopes to just have a little toast were shattered and I did wonder whether it might have been easier for them to buy a small-scale toaster until their commercial arrangement was fixed.
As it’s a JD Wetherspoon venue, I felt the need to have a little look through the on-line reviews and see if anything there surprised or delighted me.
“We were having fun as a family for a Birthday and the old blonde dragon came over and told us to be quiet in a very rude way”
I bet “having fun” meant being loud and disturbing other customers as why otherwise would a team member even be engaged in worrying about matters?
“The manager a move her station threatened to bar customers spending money for singing and having the craic for no reason obviously feels insecure in her job and cannot control the clientel on her establishment.”
It sounds very much like she was in full control of the customers.
“To noisy stink of smoking as you enter”
There are a few of these and they’re right, the smokers are dominating the entry doors….
“Staff very rude and got barred for no reason”
I’m not convinced.
“I am getting sick of people deciding what we can and cannot do in pubs. Now this pub, on an empty Thursday evening, is telling me I cannot stand at the end of the bar and have a beer.”
Probably as the team members know that customers blocking the bar is sub-optimal.
“Dreadful typical weatherspoons pub to be avoided if possible if you have any taste in pubs you visit.”
I like it 🙂 Anyway, lack of toast aside, this seemed a well run venue although the coffee machine was struggling to cope with the number of customers seeking to use it. I liked it here, although I tend to like nearly anywhere, and although it was too early for beer there were a number of keenly priced real ales. All really rather lovely.
-
Birmingham – Back to Backs National Trust Property
All the previous times that I’ve stumbled my way into Birmingham, I’ve promptly remembered that I should have booked in advance to visit this National Trust property, the ‘Backs to Backs’. It requires some forward planning, and in a bid to surprise and delight myself, I actually managed last week to book to visit this week. I’m a National Trust member as I aspire to be at least lower middle class, although I sometimes wonder whether I shall reach such pinnacles of sophistication any time soon. Anyway, this tour is one of the best rated in the city and it’s one of the best reviewed National Trust sites in the country. I’m very slightly nervous to write that I didn’t feel entirely engaged with proceedings, but that feels a rather pompous thing to say given the keen and generous volunteers who support this venue. I had better fall back on Jay Rayner’s line of “if someone wants to call me pompous or condescending, they can go right ahead” here…..
I can’t illustrate this riveting post with many photographs as they were banned inside the buildings, although that seemed to be the policy of the guide today rather than a general policy. Having noted that, our tour was quite busy and it’s not an unreasonable request from the guide. The tour is ninety minutes long, which did rather stretch my interest somewhat. I have to add a rider here that I’m generally boring, I read everything possible in museums, spend hours in them and frequently find myself on Google searching something new that I’ve learned during my meanderings. There was a lot of entering rooms, which in the case of the residences, were full of items that weren’t original to the properties, then listening to stories from other people on the tour about their mangles from the 1950s. Now, I have no complaint here, this is exactly the visitor that the National Trust gets and it’s the engagement that they want. I’m a life member of the National Trust (I drop that in for the reasons mentioned earlier about being aspirational), it would be ridiculous for me to be disappointed at that and it was rather pleasant to be by far the youngest on the tour. I like being the youngest, so a special award to the National Trust here for arranging this for me and also for the other tour participants for sharing their stories of how they had baths in tins around 70 years ago. One of the beauties of the tours is that over half the attendees stated that they had been brought up in houses similar to these, so of course they wanted to share their memories.
I’ll have to phrase this carefully, but I haven’t quite reached the higher levels of being ‘woke’ yet, but the tour guide did meander into discussion areas, shall we say, that the National Trust themselves might not have been entirely happy with. It’s too easy to be critical, but I suspect there’s quite a difference in style between the different tour guides, so experiences will likely differ. Anyway, back to the very many positives and that was the enthusiasm of the guide, but there was also one standout room which was on the top floor and was left in an unrestored condition. This clever idea showed more architectural history, which is very much my thing, such as the divide which was put in during the nineteenth century when the house was split, the staircase that was added and the layers of paint on the walls. I thought, just for my interest levels, that most of the other rooms were a little over-restored and stripped of some of their architectural relevance, although one room did contain an interesting photo of how it looked before restoration. I would have quite liked that to have been the case for all of the rooms, just to see how they ended up before they were tidied up. There were a few original traces though, such as stencilling on the walls and some original wallpaper.
Photos of the toilets were permitted. Here’s an early toilet before sanitation was added, they were only connected to the sewerage network in the early twentieth century and none of the properties ever had bathrooms fitted.
I’m pleased that I went on this tour, not least because more urban sites such as these are exactly what the National Trust need to reach out to a new audience. The story of working class people is often overlooked and the National Trust of course inevitably have to focus on their country houses. They’ve ensured that these properties survive, some of the very few ‘back to back’ houses to still be standing, so they tell an important story. I also understand why the National Trust have restored the rooms to three different periods of history and they’ve certainly spent a lot of money making these structures accessible to visitors. The awkward nature of the buildings is why they can’t easily allow visitors to walk around on their own, although they’ve got a lot of space that’s closed off at the moment (they were holiday lets for a long time, but it seems they closed during Covid) and there’s no access to any of the cellars. The old sweet shop on the corner has also closed, although has been turned into a little waiting area for visitors.
Being pre-prepared, I had read the visitor guide book in advance of my visit, and that is very well written and provides the sort of architectural information that I was interested in. As an observation rather than as a complaint, there were numerous slight inconsistencies with the guide book and the tour guide, the former notes that, unusually, there was a gas lamp in the courtyard that ensured it wasn’t dreary, whereas the tour guide mentioned that there was minimal light entering the properties. The guide book says that there were four toilets, the guide said that there were three, the guide book says that this wasn’t a Jewish court, the tour guide said it was. It’s all minor, but I sort of like a little bit of accuracy in the story telling and so I did rather glazed over some of the guide’s little facts that seemed quite odd to me. It’s thought that there were over 500 different families who lived in the houses during their 200 years of occupancy, although the National Trust have strongly focused on three families and that’s what the guide spoke about.
The guide book goes into plenty of detail about the slum clearances and the almost random nature of why these properties weren’t demolished in the 1960s. It appears that it’s simply because the ground floors were being used as shops and the council never quite got around to demolishing them. They were listed in the 1980s and then thanks to funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the European Regional Development Fund they were saved and then placed in the hands of the National Trust.
This is a fascinating location to visit for anyone and I’d merrily recommend it, it’s a piece of history that could have easily been lost. There isn’t actually anything particularly special about these houses and their yard in terms of saving them, it’s just that they represent where tens of thousands of people once lived. Many former residents of yards such as this were never that impressed about the tower blocks that they were moved to, but the survival of these units is a credit to the National Trust and those who funded their restoration, including many members of the public who sent their own donations in to help. The volunteers are doing a marvellous job in their story telling and it’s clear that their efforts are resonating positively with the vast majority of visitors. So, they don’t really need to change anything, although speaking just personally, there was a bit too much social history here for me and not enough architectural and building history. But, different things for different people and it’s clear that the National Trust have got the balance right judging by the reviews. All rather lovely and it’s just over £10 for the tour, or free for National Trust members. They don’t advertise it, but apparently it’s always worth wandering in when the tours are meant to start just in case they have any no shows.
-
West Midlands Metro – A Bit Broken
Just received this email and that’s far from ideal for the residents and workers Westwho rely on it. Glad I got to use it earlier in the year. And after all that money was spent on it…..
-
Birmingham – Tilt Bar
I’ve pretty much finished visiting all the Good Beer Guide pubs in central Birmingham, so I felt that it was time to work through the craft beer bars in the city as well. Tilt is a little tucked away, although that’s perhaps partly down to all the roadworks which made getting to it harder than I had anticipated. They’ve put helpful signage though on the main street so that I (and others….) could find it, which was much appreciated.
It wasn’t very busy, but I liked the informal feel to the arrangement.
I thought I had taken better photos of these than I actually had, but clicking on the images makes them larger and just about readable. I stayed for a little while, and the beer menu on the right was the one that replaced the heavily crossed out one. It seems there is a regularly rotating choice of beers and there were extra options in the beer fridges as well.
I would comment that the beer list is a little difficult to tie into beers on Untappd, and there were a couple of mistakes on there. That makes no difference to me as I had the information that I needed, but it might mean that I thought that I was drinking a slightly different version of a brewery’s beer to the one they served me, which will mean my reviews on Untappd might be a little wrong. But I can’t imagine that anyone much cares….. (and I won’t tell Nathan as he will tut at my lack of accuracy).
Anyway, my first beer was a collab between S43 Brewery and Brew York, which I think is the Pumpkin Pumpkin Dark Side. This was exquisite and it felt a little like Christmas with the cinnamon and nutmeg, just like a decadent drink from Starbucks. Apparently there is pumpkin in there (a hint with the beer name) but I can’t remember what pumpkin tastes like, so I took their word for that. The second beer was from Maltgarden, which immediately made me miss Poland, who I always try to get beers from when I see them. This one was Escape With Me, another stout which again had a cinnamon flavour, but also coffee, nuts and maple syrup, a second decadent drink.
My third drink was the Virtual Reality – Mocha Coconut and Vanilla Macaroons, which disappointed me as I struggled to pull any flavour out of that at all. I did partly wonder whether I had the right beer, but a few people noted the subtle flavours with this one and so perhaps they were just too subtle for me. I usually like Amundsen Brewery beers, but I thought that this was a little average. But, I can’t win them all.
And they had a choice of crisps from Pipers, another positive point…… Although I didn’t have one, the bar is also proud of their coffees and I suspect that they’re rather good as well. Yet one more good thing, they’ve made the effort to put some history of the building on their web-site, it annoys me when historic pubs make no reference anywhere to their heritage. More substantial food isn’t served here (although I’d be happy with lots of crisps) but customers can bring their own food in and the bar’s web-site offers some recommendations.
The staff were conversational and welcoming, this was always an inviting place to be. The staff were knowledgeable about beer and I felt that they made an effort to engage with every customer. In some ways, this bar seems very understated when I visited, given that it was quiet and I felt it deserved to be busy. I’d say that this is one of those bars which is on-trend, but not through a formulaic design, but by offering elements that are exciting and innovative. There were numerous pinball tables (or whatever they’re called) which added something different as well, I like additional quirky bits like that.
Anyway, I thought that this really was a delightful little place which deserves more attention given the care that they’ve taken with the choice of beers. Friendly staff, a clean environment, excellent beer and nothing for me to complain about. Reviews on-line are nearly universally positive, so all very lovely.
-
Birmingham – Birmingham Snow Hill Holiday Inn Express
One measure of just how much I like a hotel is how disappointed I am to leave it. This hotel in Birmingham, near Snow Hill railway station (and about a ten minute walk from Birmingham New Street), is one that I didn’t much want to leave at all, the professionalism of the management is evident across the building, the facilities and the staff engagement. This is, as far as I’m concerned, a glorious example of how to run a hotel and I have no idea who the general manager is, but he or she certainly seems to know what they’re doing. I rarely have reason to write that in the 100s of hotel posts I’ve made on this blog.
The view from my room, which was on the top floor and at the end of a corridor, my favourite location for a room. I arrived late at night and phoned the hotel in advance to check that they wouldn’t give my room away, but they reassuringly seemed surprised that I ever thought they would. Check-in was efficient and I felt like I was given a proper welcome, with lots of information offered about the hotel.
This is the view from the other side of the hotel, giving a scale of the height of the building.
The room, which was clean, comfortable and had a desk (a concept seemingly being ignored by some hotels now). The air conditioning worked and I was able to have the room nicely chilled for my three night stay. The windows don’t open, but I can forgive that on a building of this height and with functioning air conditioning. The room was spotlessly clean and there were no noise issues internally or externally. The hotel doesn’t seem to have cut corners during the construction of their building and although I knew that the hotel was busy, it didn’t feel like that in the room which was beautifully quiet.
The welcome drink and there was a choice of around five different beers, this was perfectly acceptable to me.
The breakfast selection, which was operating as it did pre-Covid, with individuals being able to take what they wanted themselves without staff involvement.
The pastries. The quality of these was OK, although nothing more than that, although I suspect that the hotel might be tied into buying these from IHG for brand consistency.
A general view of the breakfast room, which the reception desk told me got busy from 08:00 onwards, so I beat that by going down at 07:00 every morning. The coffee actually tasted of coffee and there were a range of different teas as well.
For what is a hotel charging £50 me per night including breakfast, I’d say that the quality offered here is really good. Perhaps there could have been a greater choice of hot food items, but there were eggs, bacon, sausage and beans, which I thought was sufficient. No-one ever checked my room number at breakfast, but there were plenty of staff members about clearing down tables on a regular basis. Everything felt clean, organised and well managed.
The reception desk staff were impeccably polite and helpful, saying hello whenever guests passed them. It’s a nice touch as this is a large hotel and it adds a level of personal interaction to proceedings. Rooms are also being cleaned every day, they’re not taking shortcuts there as some hotel chains seem to be.
I can’t really find any fault with this hotel. I did have one empty soap dispenser, but since there were two, that was hardly a major fault. That this is only negative that I can think of shows just how perfectly things ran for me. All very lovely.
-
Birmingham – Head of Steam (II)
Head of Steam is one of my favourite chains and I’ve been to several across the country and I’ve been to this one before and enjoyed the quality of the food and drink that they had.
I came in here again as they were advertising on Facebook the new bottles from Vault City Brewing. The staff member hadn’t heard of them and was initially confident that they didn’t have them. I did on four occasion say that I could see the beer in the fridge behind her, but she wasn’t having any of it. She was polite enough though and got another staff member, who told her they were in the fridge behind her. I decided not to say anything. They hadn’t yet been listed on the till and I did ask the price before ordering and was given an estimate, which transpired to be a fair chunk out, so this was a more expensive drink than I had anticipated.
Being honest, I wasn’t entirely sold on the engagement here in terms of beer knowledge, but these are challenging times for pubs and perhaps they were short-staffed.
And here is the drink that I wanted, the Raspberry White Chocolate Honeycomb Imperial Stout from Vault City Brewing, which was a rather beautiful beer. Although a stout, there was a sourness from it, with the various flavours each noticeable by taste in what was quite a complex beer. Rather lovely to have that white chocolate smoothness, the tartness of the raspberries and the touch of honeycomb. I lingered over this drink for over an hour, as it was one that could just be sipped for some time. I’ve also just realised I had listed it incorrectly on Untappd, as they have a similar sour version, which I’ve now corrected.
The interior of the bar, which was all clean and organised, as well as being quite empty. It’s a large venue and there’s an interesting bit at the entrance which feels like a covered beer garden type area. So, everything was fine with the visit, but it was missing the level of engagement that I’d usually expect from Head of Steam. No negative issues though and marvellous that they’ve got such excellent beers in stock. A perfectly well deserved entry into the Good Beer Guide in my humble view. And a reminder that I need to try more beers from Vault City Brewing.
