The mid-west in aug/sept

Making/faking a Sun/Mon (post family things) plan seems to veer towards wanting to include Wolverhampton, as I’ve just discovered Hooded Ram, and Isle of Man tix… then to Shrewsbury, then to Chester. Not sure which towns are over-nighters, and which ones are pass-throughers yet.

Sorry, Hooded Ram closed a few months ago ! You can get Okells in Chester though

Hey Phil, just seen this. Being resident in this neck of the woods i can offer my twopence. I dont know if yr plans are concrete yet but Shrewsbury is definitely a pass-through town. Its a nice historic town, lots of characterful old pubs and indie shops that’ll keep you busy for an afternoon but its not in the same league as Chester in terms of beer variety & range of venues. Id aim to stay overnight there.

There’s an Okells pub there which is good for three IoM ticks. There should be welsh ticks galore in Big Hand alehouse, and Beer Heroes & That Beer Place in the market with Top Rope & Loka Polly well represented.

1 Like

I think Shrewsbury looks good enough to do two half days, so we will overnight. Current bases are:

28th-30th Portsmouth, including day trip to Ryde on 29th
30th-1st Family things in Londinium
1st-2nd Shrewsbury
2nd-6th Chester, including day trips to Conwy plus elsewhere ('pool?)
6th-8th Crewe ‘Rail Ale’ Festival.

Ah ok, sorry I thought it was a choice between Shrews and Chester for staying overnight. That’s good you don’t have to rush. Conwy’s a great little town, esp coupled with Llandudno. Havent fully explored Liverpool since the craft boom, I really should.

Yeah, Chester looked like a great little focal point, not just a destination in itself for several days, but being well connected to other worthwhile towns too.

What’s the best logistics for a Chester-based Conwy/Llandudno trip?
I’m wondering if a return to Llandudno makes sense, where we jump out at Ll Junction, walk across the bridge, quickly do tourism and a 3-4 top spots, then taxi to Llandudno for pubs there for the rest of the day.

Phil has asked me to tell you all that he is unable to post on this forum whilst he is in the UK. Anything posted here will get to him however.

If you are in Chester you can get to Liverpool dead easy on the Wirral train. It’s a lovely city full of new/old pubs. You can do an old pub tour of Peter Kavanaghs, The Belvedere, The Philharmonic, Ye Cracke, Pilgrim, Fly in the Loaf, The Grapes, Roscoe Head, The Dispensary. All have great old character for one reason or another. You and Anna would love that tour. If you want craft beer, well then you can find those yourself. Also the Fly in the Loaf is owned by Okells of Isle of Man so their beers are always on.

1 Like

Also the Ship & Mitre is a top place and worth a look in Liverpool

North Wales there’s TAPS at Llandudno which is 5 mins from the station, the Bay Hop in Colwyn is close by and there’s another micropub at the top of the pedestrianised street (Can’t remember name). Conwy has plenty going on too.

Beer Dock in Crewe is about 10-15 mins from station. They’ve got a new place in town too now with 40 taps on.

If you want a Staffs tick then try Codsall, between Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury. Pub on the station with Holdens beer and a 5 min walk to a Joules pub with guests and there’s also the Firs club who have a brewery and, if you are still thirsty a Banks/Marstons pub. The semi-fast Birmingham - Shrewsbury trains stop too.

2 Likes

actually Tap 40 is just a name. So far they only have 20 taps

Basically did your crawl, but with a couple of modifications - it was an enormous help, thank you!

1 Like

I’ll document our Conwy and Llandudno crawls soon (and the others too, Anna recorded the order of everything). We did manage to get to Tapps - it had a good selection, and the cask wasn’t treated as a 2nd class product beside the craft keg (c.f. Euston Tap, who serve worse cask than spoons ever did).

Beer Dock the shop was fantastic, but the multitap was so crafty I got into an argument with staff (who were attempting to tell me to what a “white stout” is) and nearly got banned!

pleasure. I would love to know what you thought of the pubs

White Stout = Gimmicky Concoction

That one, yes.
However, there were white stouts historically, as stout was used as a modifier, not the style in itself. Durham did an excellent white stout well over a decade ago which was a sensible beer.