A Few Beers and A Curry - A City Pub Crawl

It was Tony's birthday on Thursday so he booked the day off work, we met at Walsall station at midday and caught the train to Birmingham.

Our first stop was The Old Joint Stock, a studio theatre and pub on Temple Row West. Designed as a library, it takes its name from its use as the Birmingham Joint Stock Bank.

Built by architect JA Chatwin in 1864, The Old Joint Stock was converted into a pub in 1997 with the theatre opening in 2006. The building is Grade II listed and bears a blue plaque as the site was the former home of Samuel Lines, a celebrated Birmingham artist.

 

Tony had a pint of Veltins, a premium German Pilsner, Jon had a pint of Frontier Ale, a small-batch craft lager hand-crafted over 42 days, using old world malt and new world hops & I had a pint of Oliver's Island, a golden hoppy ale with floral & citrus aromas. As we knew from previous visits, the pub's prices are eye-watering but the ambience is superb.

I'd booked a table for lunch at 1.30pm so after finishing our round we walked down to Chamberlain Square.

Dishoom again! My second visit in eight days!

So, what did we eat? 

I had the paneer tikka - Indian cheese marinated with green herbs and gently charred with peppers, Jon had chicken biriani - chicken, ginger, garlic, mint, coriander and rice cooked together in the Kacchi style with cranberries and Tony had Chicken Ruby - Tender chicken in a rich, silky makhani sauce. 

Keen to introduce the boys to the dishes Nikki and I had tried on our previous visits, we also ordered Gunpowder potatoes, the Dishoom House Chat and a Vada Pau along with a Roomali roti and a bowl of raita.

The verdict? The same as mine, Dishoom cooks the best Indian food you'll eat outside of India (and Tony should know, he's joined us on several of our Indian adventures).

Needless to say, a cold pint of Kingfisher accompanied our lunch and, much to his embarrassment, the waiting staff presented Tony with a chocolate pudding with ice cream and, along with most of the clientele, sang Happy Birthday to him.

Nikki and I had spotted Albert's Schloss when we were in Birmingham last week and I thought it needed further investigation. 

Described as Birmingham's first Wunderbar and pleasure palace, Albert's Schloss opened on 6th December,  occupies 13,000 square feet and is part of the £700 million development of Paradise Circus.

We each had a pint of Dortmunder Vier, a very quaffable light beer.

After two posh pubs with equally posh prices, we moved on to an old favourite, The Briar Rose on Bennett's Hill ordering three pints of beer and paying just over six quid - as opposed to nearly £20! Good old Wetherspoons!

Another blue plaque - this one dedicated to the Pre-Raphaelite painter, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, born in Bennett's Hill.

Fully intending to get the train home, we got distracted by The Post Office Stores, the subterranean pub where we spent many a lairy Saturday night back in the naughties. 

We were on our fifth pint by now.... 

It was just as friendly as we remembered and the beer was cheap but we'd forgotten about the stinky toilets, still honking twenty years later! 

We hopped on the train and were back in Walsall 20 minutes later, deciding that no birthday would be complete without a trip to Walsall's Wetherspoons, where the boys had beers and I opted for rum & cola. The photos were taken a couple of summers ago, but Spoons still looks the same. 

 The boys were mortified when I showed them this photo, they'd been so busy having fun that neither of them had noticed they were dressed almost identically, even down to the Clarks' Bank Robbers on their feet!

After one for the road, we called it a night and said our goodbyes, ten hours after we started, but don't worry, I was still up at the crack of dawn and on my Wii Fit before breakfast.  

See you soon!