BANKS’S BREWERY TAP

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More Boring Brown Bitter for you, direct from the city responsible for at least 99.2% of the BBB produced in the UK.

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Having walked past the Clarendon on our Big Banks’s Bender last Spring, resisting Stafford Paul’s call to “stop in the Tap for one ?“, I felt a bit daft when it finally made it in the Guide this year.

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Pale blue, too

After all, virtually every pub in Wolves has made the Guide now, bar Flares and Pop !

What could have been wrong with the local brewery tap, gorgeous windows and all ?

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Ornate

Nothing, really.

But it’s a bit fun pub, with multiple TVs, high tables and curved booths. Not that being a fun pub has stopped the Hogshead being a GBG regular.

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Post-modernist booths

And despite the football memorabilia, you’d never mistake it for the Stile or the Wheatsheaf.

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Jimmy Floyd gives his hilariously biased views on the Prem

OK, it’s not quite Brunning & Price, but the trade is mostly couples dining and a smattering of suits.

All your favourites from the beer factory are here.

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I thought Pedi was made in Burton ?

If it was in Waterbeach I’d be here all the time, of course, pestering them to put on the Bass and eating giant burgers.  Good job it’s not.

The staff are incredibly friendly. “Oooh, nicely finished off” says barman to barlady as she ensures the Mild has a decent head.

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Not quite nectar, but good enough

£2.80 for a cool pint with decent lacings (£2.80), a few yards from the ground of the team in 7th place in the Premier League.

OK, it’s not the nectar I had at the brewery itself, a bit sweeter in fact, and that may be why four lads in suits all plump for the Wainwright, the junior managers choice.

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Needs space for new legends

Such a shame the Olde Empire wasn’t on, that’s a great test of a pub cellar, and I really wanted to see this weird dispense mechanism in action.

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Weird

Anyway, I wouldn’t come here instead of the Great Western or the Combermere, but with real ales at £1.99 on Valentine’s Day I suspect I know where canny Wolves fellas will be heading on Thursday.

 

Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

19 thoughts on “BANKS’S BREWERY TAP”

  2. “it finally made it in the Guide this year”.
    The Clare ‘n Don’s ( named after Victorian licensees I’m told ) has been in the GBG many times but not in recent years.

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  3. “Having walked past the Clarendon on our Big Banks’s Bender last Spring, resisting Stafford Paul’s call to “stop in the Tap for one ?“” – Well next time, and there surely must be a next time, we will know to get in the Clarendon instead of that Dog and Doublet.
    I actually hoped to get in the Clarendon, and the Combermere, eight days ago after meeting fellow ex-postman Alan Johnson but ended up spending longer than expected with friends in the Lych Gate Tavern.

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    2. What? But the Daily Mail, the Sun, and the Express all tell us that ALL politicians for the last thirty years are ex-Oxbridge PPE types, who have never done a proper job in their lives, Paul? Surely they wouldn’t mislead us? I’m truly shocked.

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      1. Alan is a proper bloke, just as I expected from reading his autobiographies. ‘This Boy’ is “an amazing and inspiring story” and then there was much in “Please, Mister Postman” that I could identify with.
        I do NOT wish this blog to get bogged down with discussing politics but can understand people thinking Alan is the best Prime Minister Britain never had.
        Going to Wolverhampton with just an ordinary ticket for his talk I was most surprised to arrive and find a front row seat reserved for me next to his wife and alongside two MPs.

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  7. I’ve only been in once, about five years ago, and the contrast between the Victorian exterior and modern interior, and when I called early eveningish mostly dining and youthful clientele, was striking. The pint of mild I had was also so cold that I couldn’t really tell whether it had benefitted from only being brewed at the end of the street.

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  8. Wow, a sudden rush of West Midlands entries to digest but always nice to see some appreciation for Banks’s Mild. I visit the Clarendon fairly regularly and both the Mild and the Pedigree usually drink well – I’ve even had a pint from that weird contraption though it doesn’t seem to be used that often. It’s certainly a handsome building but I agree with your ‘fun pub’ observation – I preferred the old layout with the central island bar and less funky booths, but then I do like a proper heritage interior. I genuinely wonder how many Wolverhampton city centre pubs have never been in the GBG?

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    1. Pubmeister will know. Very few non-GBG cask pubs.left in ring road. Perhaps the newish Sunbeam !

      I and others were won over by the Mild.after the brewery tour last year, a revelation (just as Doom.Bar has.been in a couple.of odd pubs.lately).

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      1. “Perhaps the newish Sunbeam”, despite it having an award winning beer from the Westgate Brewery, and maybe new Stonegate pubs such as the Royal London, Goose and George Wallis.

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      2. Paul (for it is he) – I will never tire of the subtlety of your comments. Let us never forget that Greene King IPA is a CAMRA award-winning beer.I believe you told me that Doom Bar also “medalled” (as they say) at those awards once. Let us never let those who call those beers “dishwater” forget it.

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