retiredmartin

August 2025. Birmingham.

Sad news that the Great British Beer Festival didn’t bring in the crowds last month, despite the pull of seeing myself, Mrs RM AND Blackpool Jane drinking 8% DIPAs at the NEC.

But this blog likes Birmingham, the ruined and the repaired, the gorgeous and the goths.

Next to the JFK memorial on Digbeth High Street, the brand new Goths Playground invited further explanation;

I’m sure Cherry & Rum Body Butter is a Vault City sour.

We had an hour or so just wandering Digbeth, the bit between posh Brum and St Andrews, where Life After Football starred.

Mrs RM, buoyed by the international success of her posts on Chisinau and Toulouse, will be blogging about the joys of a wander through industrial Deritend, an area where “Look up !” is the best advice.

Life After Football had led us on an epic tour of this area on World Cup Semi-Final Day in 2018, capturing a number of pubs (notably the Eagle & Tun) just before they closed forever.

The CAMRA pub map shows the devastation caused by social changes/smoking ban/COVID (pick your reason).

A grey or white circled P is a closed pub, a blue (or white) P is heritage.

Not many real ale survivors, but pubs like the Big Bulls Head were still photogenic on a sunny Sunday.

The self-desigated “oldest pub (1368) in any city” is rarely the best, or most attractive,

and I remember popping in the Old Crown that day 7 years ago to find Hobgoblin in a plastic glass and beating a retreat.

Mrs RM was focused on not being dragged against her will into a pub, and instead  we explored the Custard Factory’s art space.

Rather too quiet, we thought, but the art was good.

Oh, another famous American.

Bob stares across the road at the ever present Ozzy.

In tests, Brummies can name more Dylan tracks (“Man gave names to all the animals”, that one Adele covered) than Sabbath tunes.

Self-serve Autobrew had potential blogging appeal, till we saw the prices.

Now the trail took us to a Proper Pub, via the railway arches,

following the route to the canal.

No prizes for guessing where we’re headed, or what we’d find there.