09/07/19 - Two ticks in Stourbridge

Good Beer Guide Ticks:  396 and 397.

Interesting hobby, this Good Beer Guide Ticking malarkey.  Its a sisyphean task will last a life time and can never be completed.

I started with the Good Beer Guide 2017.   Stourbridge had three entries - Royal Exchange, Duke William and the Waggon and Horses.   I thought I had done it.

Cue a mid week geocaching trip and a quick check of the 2019 Guide to see what has changed.

The Duke William - arguably the best pub in town - has gone.   There's four new entries (thankfully the Mitre isn't one, otherwise I'd take up trainspotting) and the total is 6.

So more work to do.   But when did Stourbridge get so scary?

The Old Bank, 28 High Street, Ma Pardoe's Bumblehole

Navigating a rubbish bag filled high street, plagued by bmx riding hoodies that cannot be up to anything community based, I arrive at what Mrs M always said was a Wetherspoons.

A converted bank... you can see where she was coming from.

The JDW Approach to architectural reclamation

... right down to the Mezzanine floor

First thing to do is check out what everyone else is on.   Lads on the pool table on cooking lager.  Chaps outside on Peroni and Chardonnay (individual glasses, not a weird black country cocktail) - so I'm getting no inspiration there.

And there are nine hand pulls available.   Who is buying this stuff?   How long has it been on?

Trusting the bible, I request half of Ma Pardoe's Bumblehole.    This is a drink, rather than a piece of her anatomy.  Its also in perfect condition.

Taken outside to admire the closed French restaurant that will surely be burnt down once Halloween brings Brexit and the Black Country Bunting.

All of two minutes pass before aggressive tramps start hassling me for money.   I thought this was a London thing.

Hoping its not permanent

Red House Boutique, Foster Place, Holdens Golden Glow

Back down the High Street, with more requests for my loose change, I head to an end of Stourbridge previously unvisited.   There's a cluster of pubs - one of which is the Bible approved Red House Boutique.

It wore the inverse livery of Bass Beer but that's where the nod to tradition ended.   It's a converted Hogshead Bar - so has a very 1990s wine bar feel to it.   The music was also deafening.   I was almost tempted to sit outside but I'm not making that mistake twice in a night.

Back behind the Velvet Rope

Three extra-ordinarily drunk men prop up the counter.  I would say for a Tuesday but I doubt if they would be more pissed at a weekend wedding with a free bar.

The reason may have had something to do with £2.70 a pint.    Not paid so little since I fell out with JDWs after the dog ban.

The Holden's Golden Glow was a good as ever... marred only by being in a cider Glass.

Adding a dart board to mask the wine bar feel.  Real Ale in a Real Cider Glass

Barbridge and Badelynge Bar to tick off... until the 2020 edition is released and its all up for grabs again.