Yes, it’s Jimmy the Hoover on the front cover of Smash Hits from 1983. How low can this blog go, you ask ? Answer – very low.
I left a group of imbibers enjoying lunch in a busy Old Contemptibles, heading back to the Jewellery Quarter to tick two more Guide new entries.
A couple of very modern bars that partly account for a shift in more traditional GBG entries away from the centre. All I care about is beer quality.
Though some helpful opening times are good, too. The Rock & Roll Brewhouse is one of two entries in GBG 18 open a grand total of 10 (ten) hours a week. That’s less time than I spend writing this blog.
And the hours in the Beer Guide had already changed. And Rock & Roll Brewhouse isn’t a proper name like The Boar’s Head or Mirth, Marvel & Maude, now is it ?
And it has the most unprepossessing entrance to a GBG entry outside of Maidenhead Conservative Club (for different reasons).
But within ten minutes I was declaring it an instant classic.
To some instant ridicule on Twitter, it must be said. But I stand by my view back then. With the benefit of hindsight, this place reminds me of a cross between the bizarre Sheppey in Somerset and the most basic of Copenhagen’s crafty bars.
My notes say “there’s something tapping under my chair“, “this music is perfect” and “Just wow“, which I accept isn’t going to convince you. The group on the table next to me, no doubt eyeing my Jimmy the Hoover with envy, were similarly entranced by the sights and sounds.
My unfined vegan beer named after Iggy Pop (NBSS 4) was gorgeous. Beer of the day.
I could have stayed there all afternoon, but no doubt they were shutting soon so they could focus on the brewing, which is fair enough.
BRAPA will either love it or hate it with a vengeance.
Just round the corner, 1000 Trades could only be a bit of a return to reality.
But it had more effortless Norrebro-style charm (Mrs RM would say bare & funky), decent craft, and a cask beer named after our American visitor. I had the house beer from round the corner, another excellent drop (NBSS 3.5).
A good mix of Saturday visitors having very un-craft conversations about mates getting married who really shouldn’t.
“It’s mental they’re getting married. She’s got 3 dogs !”
An area brimming with new found confidence, and I know I missed some other even newer places. Quite how much more of this sort of development the Jewellery Quarter can sustain I’ve no idea, but it all worked for me.
retiredmartin 
“this place reminds me of a cross between the bizarre Sheppey in Somerset and the most basic of Copenhagen’s crafty bars.”
Heh. Looking at the pics I was thinking it reminded me of the bars in Amsterdam I visited back in 1980; albeit without the little hash cube inside the upside down glass in the middle of the table for said cube to be inhaled occasionally by those sitting around the table. (not me of course; merely what I saw around me). 😉
And with that I am off to Victoria for the weekend to visit various relatives on my lovely wife’s side.
Cheers!
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Have fun !
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Enjoy. We shall expect a full report!
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Some where there must be a similar bar offering 10% discount to CAMRA members on keg only.
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I thought key keg was real ale = cask. Wish I’d stopped to debate it at length.
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Blimey! Two handpumped dark beers in a central-ish Brum boozer that’s not called The Welly, wot’s the world coming to?
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Good spot.
The world is coming to an end. On Saturday afternoon if you read the Express.
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Surely we can expect a meteorological disaster at least once a week, according to the Daily Excess!
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If the world is to come to an end on Saturday afternoon, I fully expect City to be 5-0 up at Barnsley at the time. If the world is not to come to an end, we will be utterly crap and lose 3-0.
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Named? Heck, that was team brewed. Cross Atlantic Craft we call it. Great guys at Great Heck.
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I’ll look out for one called Dick 😱
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Heavily hopped winter release.
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Please do look for one. I believe in a conversation I incorrectly thought we had passed Hook Norton Brewery on the train going to York, it was actually Great Heck.
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You resisted the delights of the funky lobster offer?
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Given the beers are all vegan and named after rock music, the only disappointment was they didn’t have one called Quorn to be Wild (sorry). Great place to visit.
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Rock and Roll Brewhouse is top drawer…not tried 1000 trades as yet…still love Rock and Roll Brewhouse’s former place too…Lamp Tavern in Digbeth…
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