Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Birmingham

  • Birmingham – Cherry Red’s Cafe Bar

    Birmingham – Cherry Red’s Cafe Bar

    This is one of those locations that I probably wouldn’t have thought to visit for beer if it wasn’t listed in the Good Beer Guide, as it’s listed as a cafe bar. Looking through the reviews, they are nearly all positive, whether it’s customers wanting a breakfast, a coffee or a beer.

    The cask and keg options are listed on a board, which I didn’t initially notice (although it is quite obvious if I’m being honest). As at that point I hadn’t noticed the board, I asked a staff member what beers there were and they were keen to engage and offer samples. This is a place that’s put quite a bit of thought into their beer options and is proud to explain what they’ve got.

    The beer pumps, although unfortunately they’d just run out of the cherry sour from New Invention. They don’t have much space here, with a limited number of tables inside, but although perhaps a little cluttered in places, everything was clean and organised.

    I went for two half pints, one of the King Korvaks Lament from Fownes Brewing Company and one of the Steady Rolling Men from DEYA Brewing Company. Both were very nice beers and I can absolutely see why this cafe bar arrangement has ended up in the Good Beer Guide. I was initially sitting inside, but moved outside as it was just too hot. I usually try and avoid sitting outside, but there was a lovely breeze blowing up through Birmingham that I thought I’d take advantage of. The prices were also reasonable for the quality of the beers which were being offered.

    In addition to the beer, the cafe bar serves meals, cake and has a range of soft drinks, so there’s something of a continental feel to the whole arrangement. In addition to the visible cask and keg lines, they also have a relatively extensive list of bottles and cans which are in the fridges, so there’s plenty of choice. The staff were friendly, the location was clean and I was certainly not disappointed with this visit.

  • Avanti West Coast : Birmingham New Street to Coventry

    Avanti West Coast : Birmingham New Street to Coventry

    Birmingham New Street is a delightful new and bright railway station, but the platforms under it weren’t modernised as part of the new structure. It seems a little unusual to go from a beautiful building which is modern and flooded in light, to the dingy platforms underneath. It reminds me slightly of Penn Station in New York, with the platform section being totally different to what is above (in that case because they demolished the beautiful building above the platforms).

    Here’s the Avanti train, not really looking the most beautiful in terms of its design, although apparently a number of their trains are currently receiving makeovers and so perhaps this one will soon receive the same modernisation.

    I had booked my train about twenty minutes before the trip using GWR (to get a few Nectar points) and it cost £4.90 to get from Birmingham to Coventry. Seat reservations are required and I was in Carriage F, although it transpired to not really be very busy on-board. The above set-up really doesn’t help customers find their carriage if they’re labelling them G and then U. The announcements made clear that customers need no longer wear masks, although they were welcome to if they wanted, which makes me confused as to what the rules actually are now as they seem to differ between rail companies. Customers were though asked not to sit in the aisle seats to help protect staff, although that request seemed to be widely ignored.

    The carriage, all clean and bright, although I couldn’t find any at-seat power (not that I actually needed any given that the journey was only twenty minutes). These are the old Virgin trains from when they operated the West Coast mainline franchise from 1997 to 2019, but Avanti will only hold the new franchise until 2026 due to changes to the way that the rail system will operate in the future (I suspect for the worse, but that’s a discussion for elsewhere).

    And safely into Coventry on time.

    I thought that this was all rather positive, they’re building a new station complex. The current railway station isn’t really very nice, it’s a bit tired and was in need of a modernisation. It was built in the 1960s after the previous perfectly adequate building was demolished, a sad loss for the city. As part of the integrated public transport strategy, buses and trains will now connect together at the new railway station building.

    Which all means that I’m safely in Coventry and this new development gives a much better first impression to the city than it used to.

  • Birmingham – Ibis Birmingham New Street Station

    Birmingham – Ibis Birmingham New Street Station

    My stay tonight is at the Ibis Birmingham New Street station hotel, part of the Accor chain. It’s centrally located and as its name suggests, is near to New Street railway station.

    There’s a modern feel to the bar area and reception, so first impressions were positive. The staff member at reception was friendly, engaging and helpful, with everything feeling like it was well run. I got my drinks voucher without needing to ask and the hotel said they weren’t going to collect the 98p that was owing (I paid for nearly all of this stay with Accor rewards points), although I suspect it might appear on my card statement as these things tend to be automated. Either way, all nicely done and I like the personable check-in process. The staff member also mentioned that she was looking forwards to seeing me again next week, I hadn’t realised their system showed future linked bookings. I had forgotten I had booked here next week for three nights, but she was quite right.

    The bar area is comfortable, not very busy at the moment and fits in with the attempts to modernise the Ibis brand. Nice.

    There were a few beer options, none of them decadent, but the Camden Pale Ale is perfectly acceptable to me as a welcome drink. It doesn’t take much effort to offer something like this, rather than just shove a few Bud and Corona in the fridge and claim that’s a beer offering. Another engaging member of staff at the bar, there’s a welcoming feel and atmosphere to this entire hotel. In an ideal world the bar could probably ramp up its drinks offerings to be a bit more creative, but there are no problems currently with the choice.

    The room is clearly a few years old and it’s slightly smaller than Ibis rooms usually are. However, it’s a central location and it has a desk, so I’m happy. There’s an air conditioning unit under the window which seems to be disconnected (although reviews suggest they are still going in some rooms), but the window opens and there’s a fan, so that’s fine with me. This attempt to sterilise rooms by sealing them up annoys me when hotels do it, it’s nice here to actually have a window open and to hear the world outside. There are no small number of reviews complaining about the noise from the street, but I quite like that and I’m not sure what a city centre hotel is realistically meant to do about city noise. I like that they’ve given me a top floor room as well, not too near the lift.

    I’m not tempted by the breakfast which is £10, requires pre-booking and seems to allow a limited amount of each items, so no more than two sausages and two rashers of bacon I think it mentioned. Customers also had to choose which hot drink they wanted, but Ibis usually offer endless amounts of any particular item. It’s much cheaper to just go around the corner to JD Wetherspoon or a local cafe, but I imagine that these Covid limitations will be swept away soon enough.

    Anyway, I’m very pleased with my £35 per night stay, especially as it’s funded by Accor points from previous stays. The rooms probably need a refurbishment in the next few years, but they are currently clean and entirely functional, so there’s perhaps no huge urgency. Reviews are mixed, but I think most of the problem is the room pushing the scores down, the staff and location rate highly.

  • West Midlands Metro : Birmingham to Wolverhampton

    West Midlands Metro : Birmingham to Wolverhampton

    I rather like light rail and tram solutions to public transport difficulties and thought that I’d spend the day going on the West Midlands Metro line which goes from Birmingham to Wolverhampton. An off-peak day pass cost £4.80 and it was easy enough to buy it on-line using the Metro’s app. There’s only the one line at the moment, but construction has started on additional lines given the popularity of the service.

    The timetable at a stop in Birmingham, although the trams seemed to run to an erratic schedule throughout the day. Sometimes there were fifteen minutes between them, sometimes three minutes, although the boards at stations were clear and accurate. It takes 45 minutes to get from Birmingham to Wolverhampton, although I got on and off the service numerous times on my journey to explore the highlights of the urban settlements between the two cities.

    Quite a sleek looking operation and there are 21 of these trams shuttling up and down the network

    The tram’s interior. I was surprised to see that they’re using a conductor and driver on every service, which isn’t a set-up that I’ve seen often on tram or light rail. It’s possible to buy tickets on board using cash or card, but the set-up that I had to show my ticket several times over the day seemed a bit labour intensive compared to other systems. Having written that though, it makes the service feel safer to have staff always available and they were helpful and friendly. The tram stops along the route are though all unstaffed and have limited facilities at them.

    It’s very hot at the moment and there’s no air conditioning other than in the driver’s cab. I know this as a customer commented to the conductor about the heat and he said they rely on opening windows to keep passengers cool, although the driver has air conditioning in his cab. The customer amused me by saying “as long as the staff are comfortable” in a manner that didn’t seem too rude. I didn’t think that the temperature on board was too bad though and the trams were clean and tidy. There were free Metro newspapers for those who want them, which is a handy coincidence given the name. There’s not a huge amount of seating on board the tram, but there are numerous places to stand, and most passengers aren’t on the service for too long.

    As a transportation option, I thought that this was well used, easy to use and clearly popular, so I’m glad that it is being extended. I’m sure that there are many more similar projects that could be brought in across the country, especially if it allows for the re-opening of closed rail lines. There is sometimes talk, although unfortunately rarely serious, of a tram network in Norwich, which is something that I suspect would be very successful if the up-front cost could somehow be subsidised. Unfortunately, that up-front cost is huge and so I can’t imagine that it will ever happen.

    There’s more about the planned extensions at https://metroalliance.co.uk/.

  • Birmingham – Tim Hortons

    Birmingham – Tim Hortons

    I’ve never been to a Tim Hortons outlet, or at least if I did when I was in Canada, then I’ve forgotten. And what I can’t remember doesn’t count, so I thought I’d experience this little piece of Canadian fast food. There are just shy of 5,000 locations around the world, with 25 or so of those in the UK, where the chain expanded to in 2017. They’re on an expansion plan to put a Tim Horton in every UK city, so there might be a fair few more of them soon.

    The chain is known for coffee and doughnuts, something similar to Dunkin Donuts, another chain from the American continent which has started to expand in the UK. There are self-service kiosks that customers can order from if they don’t want to order at the counter, which I decided to use as I didn’t know the menu options. The staff member compiling my order was friendly enough, making conversation whilst he was doing it, so no problems with the customer service.

    There’s plenty of seating upstairs and it was a little busier than I had expected. The photo shows the quiet bit of the upstairs as there was a group of older teens engaged in a prayer meeting, which I thought was something a little different. It was clean enough in the seating area and I liked that there were plenty of power points, as well as free wi-fi.

    I opted for the chicken strips, potato wedges and the mango & passionfruit cooler as a drink. Although it was after 21:00 when I visited, it was still too bloody hot in Birmingham, so that frozen drink was very delightful. The food was fine, although nothing overly exciting with the chicken strips not being that big and the potato wedges were slightly soggy. But it was still all pleasant enough, although at just over £7 it was a little more than some of their rivals.

    I might pop to another outlet at some point in the future to try the doughnuts and coffee, since that’s what the chain is better known for. Although this was something different, I’m not sure that it was sufficiently exciting for me to want to rush back. I was very pleased with the drink though, that was a refreshing and slightly decadent way to finish the meal off.

  • Birmingham – Craven Arms

    Birmingham – Craven Arms

    I am very reliant on the Good Beer Guide to find me decent pubs in areas that I don’t know and this was another excellent suggestion from the book (or app in my case) in central Birmingham. As is evident from the above signage, this was once a Holders pub and the building dates from the mid-nineteenth century. It’s now operated by Black Country Ales who have a small chain of pubs, most of which are located in the Midlands.

    There’s a mixture of old and new in terms of the decoration, with a traditional feel to the pub’s interior, but with a wide range of different beers on. You could never really design a new pub to look like this with that wallpaper and carpet combination, but I like it in this building.

    Service was friendly, engaging and warm, with the beers clearly visible on the front bar. There were also monitors in the pub which showed what beers were available and I noticed a couple of other options that I would have liked. It’s always good in my view to leave a pub thinking that there was more to try, it encourages me to want to go back.

    I went for two of the pub’s staple beers from Black Country Ales, the Pig on the Wall on the left and the Fireside Bitter on the right. Both were well-kept, at the appropriate temperature and had some flavours of note to them. I accidentally ordered some Mini Cheddars to go with them, which I felt complemented the taste of the beers perfectly.

    The pub gets very good reviews on-line and most are along the theme of this being a hidden gem that it’s worth the walk from the city centre to get to. I thought that this was a well-run pub which I had expected to be a little busier, but these are challenging times. The service was friendly, the pub was spotlessly clean, the environment was relaxing and there were plenty of beers to choose from. All rather lovely and I’m very definitely pleased that this is in the Good Beer Guide.

  • Birmingham – The Shakespeare

    Birmingham – The Shakespeare

    This Nicholson’s pub is located next to the Ibis Styles hotel that I’m staying in, so it seemed polite to pop in to see what it was like.

    There’s a selection of what I would consider to be quite generic beers, although the Mad Goose from Purity is something a little different. At least there’s a selection though, it’s be churlish not to acknowledge that.

    It’s a comfortable enough environment and it feels strange to order at the bar again. I could have ordered at the table and saved 25p by using the app, but that would have been a bit awkward given I was welcomed on arrival into the bar and asked what I would like. The service here was personable and friendly, so it was an inviting location to visit and my first impressions were positive. The pub serves food throughout the day and judging from the reviews, this is well delivered.

    I ordered the Mad Goose from Purity Brewing and it was, well, pretty tasteless. Slightly under-poured and lacking in any particular flavour, I couldn’t get the “zesty finish” that the brewery think this beer has.

    Anyway, this was a perfectly good pub for those who like Nicholson’s and it is well reviewed because of its friendly atmosphere. I also thought that the environment was clean and comfortable, with many of the customers clearly being regulars. For me, the beer range isn’t innovative enough to really make me want to visit again, there’s something unfortunately quite bland about the Nicholson’s offering in that regard. Incidentally, there is another pub with a similar name in Birmingham, with some customers merrily leaving reviews on-line for the wrong location….

  • Birmingham – A Diversity Monument by Luke Perry

    Birmingham – A Diversity Monument by Luke Perry

    This rather lovely sculpture has only been in Victoria Square in Birmingham for a couple of weeks and the signage notes that it has been commissioned for a television series which will be launched later this year. There are 25 different steel figures who are together all pulling the city of Birmingham’s crest, a different way of looking at diversity and inclusion. It was designed by Luke Perry and the steel fabrication was completed at a metalworks factory in Cradley Heath.

    I liked the key messages of the sculpture, namely “No-one is here without a struggle” and “We all came here from somewhere”. I’m rather engaged with this sculpture as although the message behind the artwork is clear, individuals can interpret it as they wish as everyone has their own struggles and challenges. Apparently this is a temporary artwork, but I hope that it goes somewhere else in the public realm so that it can be seen for a longer period of time.

    There are more artworks from Luke Perry’s company, Industrial Heritage Stronghold at https://www.ihsartworks.com/.

  • Birmingham – Colmore

    Birmingham – Colmore

    There aren’t, unfortunately, that many Good Beer Guide listed pubs in the centre of Birmingham that I haven’t already visited. I’ll explore some others instead (there is a world of decent pubs not listed in the Good Beer Guide after all), and perhaps go further afield, but I haven’t been to this one before, formerly the Birmingham Tap.

    There’s a grand bar and there are QR codes at the table so that customers can see what’s available. I visited on the first “Freedom Day” and they’re taking orders at the bar again rather than offering table service, although I suspect they’d offer it on request as the staff seemed very keen to engage. The beers are mostly from Thornbridge Brewery, which is rather lovely as I rate them highly and have visited their taproom.

    The interior has been renovated to a high standard in what was formerly a branch of Lloyds Bank.

    I decided to go initially for two half pints, this is the Lord Marples which is a drinkable bitter with some hints of toffee.

    Quite a nice little quiff arrangement on the Green Mountain and I enjoyed this, refreshing, rich and with a suitably fruit finish to it.

    Since I liked the pub so much, I decided to order another half, this time the McConnel’s, which I thought was a really decent stout that was creamy, rich and there was some coffee in there as well (in flavour, they didn’t dump an espresso in). There’s meant to be raspberry in there as well, but I was struggling to pull that flavour out, which is likely a defect of mine rather than the beer.

    As for the service in the pub, it was conversational, engaging and warm. I liked how they told me that McConnel’s was a bit of a curse, as they’ve put it on twice over the last year and then the lockdown came the week after on both occasions. Apparently it wasn’t poured down the drain as a staff member was able to have it, although he is now no longer drinking it, which is understandable give too much of a good thing and all that. All of the staff members were welcoming and there’s a nice community feel to this place. There’s a food menu which is mostly based around pizzas, and I might well meander back at some point to try that.

    All told, I very much liked this pub and I’m pleased that the Good Beer Guide sent me here. Understandably, it’s well reviewed on-line, although someone was annoyed they were charged £12 for a large gin & tonic and a pint of beer. That seems perfectly reasonable for pub standards, and I can see why they were a little annoyed (but polite) in their response.

    Anyway, another early contender to be my favourite pub of the year   🙂

  • Birmingham – ibis Styles Birmingham Centre

    Birmingham – ibis Styles Birmingham Centre

    I was a little nervous of visiting this hotel, given how much I had to complain about in the terrible Ibis Styles Seven Kings hotel in London over the weekend. Incidentally, the promised communication from the general manager from there unsurprisingly didn’t happen, but that’s no surprise. Anyway, moving on from that disaster, I was hoping not to find another problem hotel. There comes a point where it would become clear that the problem was me, not the hotel.

    As a TLDR, this hotel in Birmingham is much better. The welcome at reception was authentic, smooth and efficient, with the welcome drink proffered without my asking for it. Lots of information about the hotel and the staff member was conversational, so my first impressions were positive.

    The rooms here all appear to be the same size, but reception mistakenly gave me a room they’d made up for a family.

    I fixed that. The room has some faults, but it’s a few years old and I suspect it’ll get renovated in the next few years. The windows don’t open, which I don’t like, but there are vents which mitigate the problem somewhat. There aren’t power points by the bed, but that’s a legacy of when the hotel was designed. It was otherwise clean and it has a desk, which I consider to be an essential in a hotel room (unlike the designers of the Ibis Styles Seven Kings, which I feel I might keep mentioning).

    The main light was flickering, but I reported that they had a bit of a broken bulb to reception and they had it fixed by the time I came back. The air conditioning is also central, with no way for the customer to cool or heat the room, which is absolutely not ideal either, but the temperature has been OK for me.

    The drinks selection was though inadequate, a choice of Bud and Corona is not much use to me and there should be a nod towards something local. By chance, a guest asked when I was there if they had any real ale and the polite staff member sent them to the pub next door. The hotel should offer bottled real ale here, this is in my view an omission which is easily fixed.

    I like these and I wouldn’t have expected those early times to be so quiet. I don’t like a breakfast with ambience, I like one with no people, so I went down at 07:15.

    The breakfast area, which is partly served by staff and partly self-service. Now that “Freedom Day” has gone by, I wonder how long these staffed sections will remain, but it was all efficient and well managed.

    And there we go. All fine and everything at the appropriate temperature, with the environment being spotlessly clean. Those pain au chocolate are generic, but I quite liked them with the above average machine coffee that they had. Incidentally, the breakfast is included and that used to be the case at more Ibis Styles, but Accor seems to have removed that as a requirement from the brand which is a shame.

    Unfortunately, the hotel has below average reviews, which is a shame given the friendliness of the staff. The problem is evident when looking at the detailed scores on Google, the location gets 4.8/5, the service gets 4.6/5 and the rooms 2.9/5, so it’s clear that a refurbishment would be better sooner rather than later. Problems seem to be mostly be about air conditioning, a lack of openable windows and slow wi-fi (it is quite slow as I checked) which with the exception of the latter they are likely to be difficult to fix now. There are very few negative reviews about the staff, so at least customers feel welcome and that’s important.

    I’m still here for a couple more days, but I’m not expecting any debacles, which means this is a hotel that I’m perfectly happy in. I got this as part of the Accor ‘three nights for the price of two, with free breakfast’ offer at the beginning of the year, although it’s the only one that the chain didn’t ultimately cancel due to some of their hotels still being closed. Anyway, it’s a relief not to have two bad hotels in a row (not that I get many hotels that I consider bad anyway).