I spend a lot of my time drinking in the Great Western in Wolverhampton. Some of you may not know it. Some of you may have heard of it. I trust some of you will even have been there.
It’s a fairly old-school pub in lots of ways. Full of “proper” drinkers, baps on the bar, gray peas n bacon etc. But it’s also undergone continuous expansion and (possibly) improvement over the 20+ years I’ve been visiting. The beer list is relatively small in comparison to today’s craft bars – 4 Holdens beers, almost always Bathams Best Bitter as the first guest, + another 3 guests carefully curated to complement the existing range.
This weekend, the GW is holding a beer festival. Jamie, the landlord, is hugely keen on remembering the fallen in the war – he doesn’t take sides. He merely wants us all to remember the bravery of the people who fought for their truth. So last year, the beer festival remembered 100 years since the start of WW1. The intention, I believe, is to hold a remembrance each year until 2118 – keeping the 100 years theme alive.
Not surprisingly, there’s a bit of a war theme going on. The “Beer Token Sheet” is a ration book, purchased from the “War Office”. There are prizes for best dressed, and there’s a 2-Minute Silence at the start and end of each session. It’s stirring stuff….
There are some 80 odd beers, some of which are on gravity tap in the conservatory…..
Some of which are on the (IMO) vastly underused conservatory bar….
Most of the staff for this pub festival are volunteers. There’s no payment. There’s just a sense of fun, having a few beers with good people, and a lovely feeling of being there at the start of something a bit new in Wolverhampton. The (frankly to me, risible) cries of “cheap labour” “profit for the pub” etc simply don’t hold water for me. The guys and girls manning the bars and stillage are here because they like good beer. They want to share with the customers and friends of the pub some good beeráge.
This is why, on Friday 24th and Saturday 25th of April, I’ll be spending 12 hours a day pouring and chatting about beer with people I’ve mainly never met.
Beer is a good thing – it is a bit of a social glue. I love it. And I hope you can find time to do the same at a local pub festival near you, too.
Beer Drinkage 