Gunmakers Arms, Birmingham

Well and truly open. This is now the tap house for Two Towers Brewery. It stocks their full range. Has just won the CAMRA rising star award. A warm and friendly pub, Mark and his brother are excellent behind the bar. Clientele are also really friendly. The Two Towers range is superb, especially the Jewellery Porter, Bhacker Ackhams, Chamberlain Pale, Hockley Gold and, when its on, their Black IPA called Vulcanised. Could do with more interesting decor, but this is a really nice pub. Oh, it does food now and also has Friday Night Street Food.

In 2011, Birmingham Council tried to change the name of their historic Gun Quarter, but relented after a public outcry. Had they got their way, the area's legacy would at least have been recalled in the name of this pub in the heart of the district. It's a nice traditional two bar set-up, with a public bar to the left and a larger lounge to the right. The public bar looked fairly basic, with some fixed bench seating along the end wall and a selection of sports related items and pictures on the walls. The landlord was busy cleaning this side when I arrived early on a Saturday afternoon, so I went into the lounge which has a compact bare boarded bar area and a slightly larger carpeted seating section further to the right. There is a short stretch of bar on this side and a similar layout in the public bar, although the servery has a third counter that faces the entrance and suggests the position of a former jug and bottle area. The lounge bar has been decorated with whiskey boxes, some breweriana and a few old paintings and there is some limited pew seating towards the rear. The larger seating area meanwhile, has some truly garish upholstered banquettes, low stools and low comfy chairs. The walls are half panelled with white upper halves and a large projector screen dominates the right hand wall, although it was out of action, leaving me to suffer Heart FM (a subsidiary of Yam Yam FM?!) for my sins. Two Monty's beers were available - Sunshine and Old Jailhouse - as well as fairly standard keg options which included Kozel and something called Kofola, which I have since discovered is a Czech/Slovakian soft drink. The landlord was very friendly and made sure he poured the Old Jailhouse through before serving me what I'm guessing was the first pint of the day given that I was the only customer. It wasn't really up to much though, which was a shame as I was looking forward to trying something from a brewery that was new to me. I thought that this place had a bit of something about it, but was let down by the poor timing of my visit and, more worryingly, the dubious pint. I'd probably give this place a second chance, but if I was pushed for time, I'd pick the nearby Bull instead.

The Gunmakers Arms is a decent looking white painted pub. Once inside there was a smallish bar to the left which was empty,so i went in the lounge to the right,this room was almost spilt into two halfs,the area near the bar was the smaller and had a laminated floor,the larger area away from the bar was carpeted and had comfy bench seating with small stools and chairs. A TV was showing BBC football score updates. There was a seperate room to the rear which had a pool table in it. There were two real ales on the bar,i had a drink of Montys Old Jailhouse which was a very nice drink,the other beer was Montys Match. I quite liked this pub,but it was fairly empty on my Saturday afternoon visit. Pub visited 17/8/2013