Green Man, Birmingham

Located at the east end of Harborne High Street, this is a substantial 1930s food-led pub with a variety of seating areas around the 'L'-shaped bar counter. Mixture of modern dining tables, with decor mostly in pastel shades and anonymous background music. Standard Ember Inns menu. Surprisingly, it had a good selection of eight real ales from a total of 11 handpumps, including standard offerings like Brakspear, Pride and Landlord plus some less-common beers such as Bateman's Silver Hare (£3.00).

Comfortable Ember Inns pub with several drinking areas and a good selection of real ales.

Ember Inn with good selection of 6 real ales in good condition. Pleasant decor and furnishings. Reasonable prices eg £2.75 for pint of beer.

A single storey mock Tudor building with sandstone mullioned bay windows, dual Jacobean style gable ends either side of the entrance and dormer windows in the roof, the current pub was built in 1939 to replace a lovely Georgian pub on the same spot, it is now owned by Ember Inns. The interior has a fairly modern décor with various pastel colours and some fake traditional features such as exposed rustic brick walls and artificially weathered beams, the layout is generally open plan around a central island bar counter. On the left of the entrance is a small area with most of the beams, a basic coal grate in the back wall and leather bench seats. To the right of the entrance is a more spacious area with a large open fire place in the right hand wall and high booths with leather bench seating. In the back right corner of the building is another area with a contemporary tiled floor and a double sided fire place with brick chimney breast and a cast grate. There were a couple of large flat screen TV’s dotted around that were showing a boxing match in the early afternoon, which I thought was a bit of a strange time to be showing that kind of thing. Regular ales are currently M&B Brew XI and Purity Pure UBU with up to four changing guest beers, but on this occasion there was only two which were Double Maxim and Orkney Dark Island (GBG 2012 and Cask Marque). I tried both of the guest beers which were in good condition, it is the first time that I have had the chance to try the Double Maxim on hand pull and I’m pleased to say it did not disappoint. Like many of the other reviewers on this site I am not a huge fan of the Ember Inns brand simply because their pubs always feel at least a little fake and naff. Saying that the place is clean, I thought the beer was well kept and an interesting selection. Not the first pub I would revisit in the area but I would pop in for one again.

Large, comfortable, food biased large pub. It has a modern interior that is formula based as its an Ember Inn, but I found this more attractive than others I have been in, possibly because its a more traditional building, and I would prefer this one to something such as say a Toby, but you can't get away from the formula of a big chain. Beer quality was actually good, which I wasn't expecting, and they have a choice of 5 real ales, and they do a pint of Brew 11 for £1.99 - not bad for this area!