The Wellington, Birmingham

As stated, 16 pumps, with at least 15 of them dispensing on my visit. Ordering by number seems to be pretty much the done thing - you get the number off one of the screens, which also helpfully indicate the approximate colour of your ale. No problem here with choice or quality. But, I have to add a slight caveat: this is a busy pub and can get pretty crowded. The floor is carpeted. This is not an ideal combination and I'd advise not standing completely still for too long or you may find shoes and carpet attaching like velcro. If you're in Birmingham for beer, this one ought to be on your list.

The Wellington is a long narrow pub with seating areas at the front, rear and facing the bar that runs along the right hand wall. At the rear is a dartboard and ‘snooker darts’ which I’ve not come across before. There are no distractions from piped music, but there is a quiz every Sunday from 19:30. Food isn’t available, but customers are invited to bring in their own food for which plates and cutlery will be provided. The opening hours are from 10am until midnight every day. The major draw of this pub are the sixteen hand pumps that are constantly drawing ales to suit everyone’s palate. There are a couple of plasma screens that list the ever changing beers to save on rewriting a chalkboard all day. This is certainly a must visit pub for any real ale fans who find themselves in Birmingham and I’ll certainly return next time I’m in the area.

This is one of Birmingham’s top real ale pubs which is located in a lovely Georgian style building with nice moulded arched windows (especially on the first floor) that I believe was actually built around 1860ish and has been owned by Black Country Ales since 2004. The interior is small and basic with a single long but narrow room with the traditional bar counter and mirrored bar back in the middle of the right hand wall and a dart board on the back right wall, the floor is entirely carpeted and the walls are half wood panel with Victorian style patterned wallpaper, various old photos of Brum and a detailed history of the old Mitchell’s & Butlers brewery on the left wall. There are double doors at the back which lead out to an alleyway mainly for smokers. A noteworthy feature is the large flat screen TV high on the wall to the right of the bar counter which displays the name/brewery/strength/colour of the 16 ales on the bar, a good tip for ordering is to ask for the number of the beer on the list rather than the name as the bar staff prefer this method. You may overhear a regular ordering what sounds like a takeaway “three number six, two number ten, a number seven and a number fourteen please.” Regular ales are currently Black Country Ales Fireside, Bradley’s Finest Golden, Pig on the Wall (Mild), Wye Valley Hereford Pale Ale, Purity Mad Goose and Oakham Citra with up to ten changing guest ales. Some of these were Purity Gold and Ubu, Teme Valley This and T’Other, Warwickshire Graveyard Bob and Hobsons Town Crier (GBG 2012). Anyone who knows their breweries will notice that many of the beers are from within thirty miles of Birmingham which I personally appreciate. I’m always a bit suspicious of pubs that serve so many real ales as you need a quick turnover to avoid having beers on the bar too long, but this does not seem to be a problem for this pub probably because it is so well placed in the city centre near to both New Street and Snow Hill railway stations. On this visit I counted four pump clip changes in a little over an hour! A truly magnificent pub for real ale fans, the selection and quality of the beers is consistently excellent in my opinion which is why the pub gets pretty packed at peak times. Its worth mentioning that the landlord of the pub is not only a CAMRA member but he is on the Birmingham branch committee, if the beer wasn’t so good I would wonder if the pubs four pub of the year awards in the last eight years might be favouritism but that would be rather cynical of me. Regardless of the politics this is always the first pub that I consider visiting if I am in Birmingham city centre. I must admit I found reviewing this pub a little daunting as it has been so well described and summed up by many great contributors to this site.