retiredmartin

April 2026. Stirchley. Birmingham.

With Attic ticked I could/should have caught the next train to New Street for my second Brum pub, but something was drawing me to Stirchley High Street.

Not the Peanut Butter Jelly-me-up burger on the corner,

but a couple of Untappd check-ins I’d just noticed the gloriously Art Deco British Oak.

A bit too quiet at 4:30,

but that changed over the half hour,

with custom from a diverse mix of Stirchley folk far removed from the fairly blokey atmosphere I recall from two decades ago. My notes say “3 toddlers, 1 soda water and lime, 1 lemonade, 1 purple fruit shoot, 1 Carling“.

A chap comes in for a pint of lager, finds himself a quid short, and as he heads out the door to the cashpoint I give him a quid; it’s like the Good Samaritan. Actually at the bar it turns out I’ve given him a euro, and there’s a slightly awkward pause while I rifle through my yellow purse for some legal tender.

Cocktail menus on the table, craft beers on the bar.

Yes ! Bass alert.

Quite a complex Bass, cool and foamy (NBSS 3.5), but not as complex as the keg from a Bewdley micro, named after a Pub Man from Minnesota who caused a stir in that quiet Worcestershire backwater.

It was magic. But, and I’m not proud of this, it was perhaps a beer too far, too soon, as I go all maudlin when Olivia Rodrigo’s “Grudge” comes on (fantastic soundtrack, again).

“And I know, in my heart, hurt people hurt people
And we both drew blood, but, man, those cuts were never equal“

But the moment passes.