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Beer of the Week (w/e 28th April 2024) with ROBCamra
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Image posted by Quinno _
Submitted on Sunday, 26th December 2021
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Detail Pages
The Jolly Crispin, Dudley
Upper Gornal
Postal town: Dudley
DY3 1UL
Served areas
Reviews of The Jolly Crispin (Average Rating: 9 of 10) see review guidelines
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Quinno _ left this review about The Jolly Crispin
Not much change here in the intervening years – this is still a cracking traditional pub with a wide range of well-kept beers. Slight annoyance was the preponderance of bar blockers in the public bar. A proper fire was on the go to help keep the dank misty afternoon outside at bay. 10 cask on the go this time, my Ludlow Blonde was a solid NBSS 3.5. Cobs (both hot and cold) available. Didn’t see any of the homebrew, has that gone now? Note this pub is cash-only, which suited me fine. A fine emporium, make sure you do it.
October 2008
Slightly below street level, this is an enjoyable two-roomed pub serviced by a central bar; the comfortable lounge bar at the rear with panoramic views of the Black Country is well-worth seeking out but there’s plenty of atmosphere in the public bar as well. There’s a nice relaxed atmosphere inside, with timber ceiling beams festooned with hundreds of previously served pump clips from beers past (and passed), various brasses and a dart board. A good selection of eight ales available on my visit, including a dark one - Wickwar Station Porter, in excellent condition. Service was friendly on my visit and cobs were available. A worthy addition to a Black Country crawl. Rated 9
On 30th December 2021
- rating: 9
[User has posted 5099 recommendations about 5082 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Gill Smith left this review about The Jolly Crispin
Our group had a great time here, some in the front bar and some in the rear lounge. We were told to get our bear and meet up at the back for a brewery tour, so armed with our excellent Titanic Chocolate & Vanilla Stout and Acorn Ernest IPA e met up at the shed at the rear to meet up with the Fownes brewers for a chat and tasting session of their Fownes beers. I must say their King Korvac Saga II Burden, Leviathan and Hand of Doom all went down a treat and a few purchased some bottles to sample later.
On 21st November 2017
- rating: 9
[User has posted 1339 recommendations about 1222 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
John Bonser left this review about The Jolly Crispin
On the main road down from Sedgley to Dudley is The Jolly Crispin, a small double gabled cottage style old looking building that is something of a contrast with more recently built buildings nearby. We later learn that this is the oldest pub in Upper Gornal.
Pleasingly, and something that should definitely be encouraged, opening hours are prominently displayed in the window, telling us that the pub doesn’t open until 4pm from Monday through till Thursday. More encouragingly, we see small print telling us that the pub is the home of Fownes Brewery and promising us “a festival of beer every day”
A small bar, slightly below street level, at the front is traditionally furnished, featuring black beams and pillars and is effectively split into two distinct areas by a dart board on a wall on the right hand side. A fine fireplace on the far right hand wall catches the eye, along with a fine collection of brass artefacts.
A bare stone walled corridor leads through to a much larger, cosy, carpeted, smarter lounge at the rear with black ceiling beams. Again, this room is traditionally furnished and decorated. A large stone archway with another impressive fireplace and stone chimney breast divides this lounge into two separate areas.
A collection of pumpclips decorate some of the beams in this room. A laminated card – “The Crispin News” – on each table provides relevant pub news for customers, from which we learn, for example, that there would be a cider festival on 10 October and, rather less interestingly, that 7 December would be “Choir Day”. We learn that Fownes Brewery won the Champion Beer Award at Wolverhampton Beer Festival for the 2nd year in a row, but, rather oddly, it doesn’t say which Fownes beer it was.
Above a fireplace is a framed potted history of the pub and a list of licensees since 1820. We learn that it was a former Simpkiss house ( Older drinkers may remember that Simpkiss brewed just down the road from The Bull and Bladder in Brierley Hill ), who were eventually bought out by Greenall Whitley. The pub was formerly called The Crispin – the word “jolly” being added sometime in the 1830’s. The pub sign at the front shows a cobbler mending shoes and we learn that the premises formerly housed a shoemaker. Saint Crispin was apparently the patron saint of shoemakers
Out at the back is the brewery plus a surprisingly large car park.
On the real ales front, if I was being picky, I could complain that I only counted 8 real ales on and not the advertised and promised 9. Beers on, when I called in, one late September afternoon, were Kinver Half Centurion, Ossett Silver King, Crouch Vale Brewers Gold, Castle Rock Harvest Pale Ale, Ossett Excelsior, Salopian Hop Twister, Kinver Black Ram plus, from the on site brewery, Fownes Crispin Ommer. I found the latter to be an enjoyable, typically light coloured pale ale which, so we keep being told, is how people like their beers around here, although, much against the trend, it did have a noticeable bitterness to it. I was disappointed, and rather surprised, that only the one in house beer was on, but, in fairness, the fact that they brew on site is not heavily promoted, so perhaps expectations are being deliberately managed. Gravities are detailed on a board behind the bar, but there’s no tasting notes. It’s been a CAMRA Good Beer Guide regular in recent years.
I found this to be a likeable and welcoming place which appears to attract a good cross section of customers. This is going on my ever lengthening list of pubs to revisit sometime, hopefully in the not too distant future.
On 26th January 2015
- rating: 8
[User has posted 560 recommendations about 560 pubs]
View more reviews of The Jolly Crispin (11)
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Pub Details
Pub details supplied by members of this site to the best of their knowledge. Please check with pub directly before making a special trip.
- Accommodation : No last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Bar Billiards : No last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Beer Festivals : Yes last updated 07 September 2014 by Aqualung .
- Beer Garden : Yes last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- CAMRA Discount : No last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Car Park : Yes last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Child Friendly : No last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Darts : Yes last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Dog Friendly : Yes last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Function Room : No last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Hot Food : No last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Jukebox : No last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Karaoke : No last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Live Music : No last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Live TV Sports : Yes last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Micropub : No last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Pinball : No last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Pool Table : No last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Quiz Night : Yes - Alternate Wednesdays - last updated 07 September 2014 by Aqualung .
- Real Ale : Yes last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- Real Cider : Yes last updated 30 December 2021 by Quinno _
- WiFi : Yes last updated 07 September 2014 by Aqualung .
