Rose Villa Tavern, Birmingham

Enjoyed my visit to this beautiful old pub with it's large stain glassed windows and extensive tiling. I chose a beer from Blind Monkey brewery which was fine.

Great looking pub with 5 ales on. My only slight complaint is the choice was mostly darker beers (probably due to the time of year and Winter/Christmas beers). The Titanic Chocolate and Vanilla stout was good as were the others I tried. Also offers a Camra discount.

Large pub with impressive tiled interior and stained glass windows, but decorated in a strange bohemian style with a mixture of dark walls and bright colours. Not unpleasant though, and a friendly welcome. Several ales and a cider on pump; I tried the house-badged bitter which was light and hoppy; origin unknown.

A 2 roomed pub with very ornate windows. 6 handpumps to be found on the bar in the right side of the pub. Tiled walls decorate the inside which also seems to have an affection for deer. A red telephone box is also to be found inside. Its quite an interesting pub to be fair. I had the Two Towers Brewery, Happy Tea Clipper. Which was fine.

Can't add to the the interior descriptions below. 5 real ale taps but just 2 on during my visit.

A must visit if you are in the area - and you can team it up with a nice little pub crawl of some really decent boozers. The architecture in here is stunning - especially the stained glass windows. Real Ale served in a jugged pint pot (unless you ask) and my Black Sheep was in decent nick. Great place to people watch. Some photos on my blog at http://mappiman.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/020515-jewellery-quarter-pub-crawl.html

This Grade II listed pub in the heart of the Jewellery Quarter was built by Mitchells and Butler in 1920, yet retains a feel of the ornate Victorian pub-building era. The pub offers a number of distinctly different seating areas, although some sections have clearly been opened out in more recent times, whilst some somewhat incongruous modern décor detracts slightly from the original splendour in places. The main front bar has a terrazzo floor and an elegant curved bar counter opposite a series of banquette booths on the front wall. The dark wood servery boasts a decorative bar back with particularly impressive pillars and top, but the room's real star feature is the row of windows along the front wall, each a large arch shape with beautiful stained glass work depicting a ship motif. A disused door here also has some fine stained glass work worth checking out. Meanwhile, a modern wallpaper frieze runs around the room, with a deer pattern printed on it and there is also a tree trunk painted on the wall next to the bar with a real branch hung from it across the ceiling, from which little ornamental birds and the like hang. Equally odd and unnecessary is the red phone box in the front right corner, which was housing a pump clip display as far as I could tell. Some stunning glazed tile work can be found to the right, and also in the passageway to the side of the room, whilst over to the left there is a plainer section of tiling around a long U shaped banquette. Taking the corridor on the right hand side, you pass a number of cut glass mirrors before emerging in the rear snug - a fantastic little space with parquet flooring, armchair and bench seating lit by an impressive skylight and some light fittings made from antlers. A broad staircase to the right catches the eye initially, but it is the large inglenook fireplace on the rear wall, with a large stone arch and relief detail that is the real star of the show. A proper frieze runs around this room and there is a marvellous tile painting above the fireplace. There is plenty more excellent tiling here and a second arch to the left takes you into another parquet floored room in the rear left of the building, with curved banquette and low stool seating. Some nice stained windows aside, this is the least impressive room in the pub, displaying another of those weird tree branches, a modern tiled 'Way Out' sign, modern art prints and an annoying, buzzing air-con unit. This room had menus and tin cans full of cutlery on the tables, so is presumably favoured by diners. The circuit back to the main bar can be completed from here, passing through a small space with a decoratively tiled floor. Music played very quietly throughout my stay and several posters advertised the possibility of live music in the evenings. There were three ales available on this visit - Black Sheep Bitter, Joules Slumbering Monk and Two Towers Baskerville Bitter - with three more hand pumps out of action. I tried the Baskerville Bitter, which I found decidedly average, but it was at least encouraging to see some local micro breweries being supported. I really enjoyed exploring this pub, which offered up a series of pleasant architectural surprises that made the visit very worthwhile. I hope the owners continue to appreciate the building they have on their hands and ease off with their unnecessary decorative efforts because this is a pub well worth heading out of the city centre to appreciate.

Substantial building, with several large arched windows in an otherwise relatively plain-looking façade. However, once inside, you see that these windows contain decorative stained glass and there is a mix of plain and fancy tiling in the three surviving rooms distributed around the central bar area. Also has some quirky decor, including the old-fashioned red telephone box. A few wooden benches out front too. Three of six handpumps, offering Castle Rock Harvest Pale, Tower Jewellery Porter and Joule's Blonde (£3.40).

As noted in the reviews, the Rose Villa is a pretty impressive-looking building both inside & out, featuring tiling, red banquette seating, a tree branch on the ceiling and that important element so often overlooked - a traditional phone box. On the bar, 6 pumps offer 4 ales, although Hockley Gold turned out not to be neither terrifically gold, nor particularly good. It seemed a bit early in the day for Thornbridge Jaipur; Black Sheep and a.n.other completed the ale line-up. Kegged offerings included Estrella Dam. Music was playing at louder than background volume to the few customers present and I got the impression that they were in the market for the student crowd. In the evening, I've no doubt it's more crowded; possibly too much for an old codger like me.