July 2023. Sheffield-Derby-Birmingham-New Street.
I don’t know how Simon (and Daddy BRAPA) does it. Every Saturday without fail, up at 6am to catch the first train out of York station to the far corners of the kingdom to have a pint in six pubs with a cauliflower in tow.
I wasn’t up and out till 10am, and the first cancellation of the day meant I didn’t catch the Derby train till an hour later.
Then the Cross Country service to Plymouth was cancelled so, like Si, I spent an hour at Derby station.
An hour would have been time enough to cross the road and check out the Merry Widows and the Victoria,
whose punk for the masses night held much promise.
But I can tell you now that drinking beer (or coffee) before boarding ANY train in 2023 is a very bad idea, as the tw*t who was reluctant to let folk sit on an empty chair housing his coat (tw*t) found when h attempted to get to the loo as we crawled past Burton at about 7mph.
What is up with trains these days ? They’re all either cancelled or late or squeeze you in like sardines. Sardines who have paid for the privilege.
Two carriages for the Derby-Brum leg, six (all empty) for the local journeys. I ask you.
Two hours to Brum New Street, a joy of a station these days,
then a 24 minute saunter through suburbia and Sutton towards Mere Green.
Except it took 30, and I could have walked the last mile to Four Oaks quicker.
Mere Green is described as the commercial centre for Four Oaks, which is described as the residential centre for Mere Green.
It’ll look familiar to anyone who’s been to Boldmere, which counts out most of you.
But you know you’re in Brum, as the skies open just as you leave the train. Every time.
I wasn’t entirely convinced I hadn’t been to the Ale Hub before, despite it only opening in 2021, as I couldn’t tell it apart from an identity parade including Boldmere and Butlers Lane and Wylde Green.
Disappointingly. I arrived at 1pm to find myself the only customer. I think the locals were all at the Walsall v Villa friendly.
It’s a neighbourhood bar, rather than an earnest craft bar, so you get those jam jars full of identical pale liquid. Church End Fallen Angel might be the first pulled that day but it’s pretty good, a cool NBSS 3+.
Dire Straits, for the 20th time this year, but it’s the commercial period DS today;
The polite barman gets on with the household chores while I look around for CAMRA magazins I know I’ll bin before I read, and all is well with the world.
Meanwhile, five miles away, BRAPA is already on his third pint of the day.
retiredmartin 
Might be a slow train, but it is comin’ up around the bend.
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Is that Dylan or Forgerty ?
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Dylan circa 1979. Not sure I’ve ever quoted Fogerty.
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“What is up with trains these days ? They …… squeeze you in like sardines” and I find Cross Country are the worst for that and they’re expensive, hence me going via Euston and Paddington for Penzance, Bristol ( both 2018 ), Bath (2019) and Bristol again (2023).
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Dave – coming round the bend
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I guess there is salvation in both songs!
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Just listening to the “new” Dylan record. I want to know what Bob thinks of Paul Simon’s record
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Not been here – in fact not really covered Sutton at all…where di you walk from to get to Boldmere in half a hour??
By the way, went to The Victoria in Derby last week and absolute cracking pint. The new Brunswick!
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30 minutes on the train from New Street to Four Oaks !
And it was literally crawling from Boldmere, bloke in carriage swearing at train as think he needed loo.
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There needs to be a really special and nasty place reserved in hell, for the people who put bags on seats on public transport.
Then there needs to be a another portal further along a plunge pool corridor of Doom Bar, for those who do it on busy packed public transport.
The height of self entitlement.
The word Tw*t is too good.
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Hi Martin – I’m sure the same chap was mopping the floor when Nick and I first visited Ale Hub back in January. Perhaps its what they do to pass the time when there aren’t many customers about. I’ve generally been quite impressed with the Ale Hubs I’ve visited so far, which reminds me I need to do the Perton one on the edges of Wolverhampton as a matter of priority. Cheers, Paul
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I’ll be very close to that Perton one soon, Paul. Just on a nausea inducing bus towards Finchfield for my last West Mids tick.
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I’ve never been to Perton. And it wouldn’t be on my To Do List if I had one.
I was a third of the way there getting round all the Penkridge pubs yesterday but will never get closer than Codsall.
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