Had a wander around the city last night – visited the Wellington, famous real ale place with 16 beers on but NO DOGS! So, sat out in the alley with the cancer patients having our beer, then went back for slow cooked gammon and a pile of mash! Had a few Herbets loudly passing the boat at 0230 but otherwise a good mooring.
Today I went out for a cycle on the bike – just to see some of the canal arms. Then after lunch we took the Boggle out for a walk and a look around the Cathedral side of town (and yes, with a new pub in mind).
Busy place! Lots of school kids in crocodiles visiting Sea Life – kind of appropriate. The cathedral had some marvellous stained glass windows and bears – yes, every city seems to have these things – Bath had lions one year, pigs the next. Bristol had Wallace & Gromits everywhere:
Cute? But very little in the way of green spaces to walk our dog.
One of my secret aims was to visit the Western Arcade – a magnificent Victorian shopping arcade, with a very rare tobacconist! Time to stock up!
And, oh look, a bar! The Post Office Vaults. About 8 beers and around a dozen ciders too. A very good range of beers too.
We tried Hip Hop (Briggs) = excellent, Dark Drake (Dancing Duck)= v. good, Shaky Stevens American stout and the IPA – all good stuff AND they let Toby in too.
So this is what the outside of the infamous Birmingham New Street station looks like – shed loads of Baco Foil??!
And just around the corner was a BrewDog pub – all fizzy, keg beer but with amazing flavours and eye-wateringly high prices – I had Hop Kills at £7.25 a pint, so we tried halves – the price board is deceptive as it is in odd quantities, like 2/3 pint. No, the Vaults gets the thumbs up here.
Very dog friendly though.
