Coach & Horses, Stafford

Official site of Coach & Horses - www.craftunionpubs.com

Official site of Coach & Horses - www.craftunionpubs.com

The Coach & Horses is a small no frills L-shaped high street boozer. The bar counter faces the entrance and minimal furniture; most of the tables were strewn with betting slips. In the left rear is a raised area that houses DJ equipment, it must get very cosy in here at the weekend. Televisions were airing midweek live muted football and the likes of Dire Straits were playing at some volume. The bar supports standard keg and one of the two hand pumps was badged with Sharp’s Doom Bar, which was off. After an initial sneer from the woman working behind the bar, who I took to be the landlady, things got a bit more polite. This place is a million miles away from the poncy Post House around the corner, however I think it may swing too far in the opposite direction for most.

A Craft Union house with two hand pumps, one of them with a Doom Bar badge on it. It was a lively pub, with a decent crowd of locals on a mid-week afternoon. At first the beer seemed to be ok, but with an unusual flavour to it that I had not encountered before in a beer and which became more prominent. Luckily for me I had asked for a half, but two of our group prefer to drink pints. One of them identified the flavour as butyric acid, which is sometimes referred to as baby sick, or less politely as vomit. I hope not to encounter this one again.