Tapri, Dudley

A well supported pub on our Saturday eve visit, mainly families with small children. Didn't see many pies around the place, maybe they had finished serving as it was around 7pm. Two ales on handpump Wye Valley Dorothy Goodbodys and Springhead Roaring Meg. The service here was very slow and quite a few tables were not cleared of empty glasses.

This was our chosen pub to stop off for lunch on another Friday pub crawl of the Royale Borough of Dudley . Sledgehammer (5.7%), Lumphammer (3.7%) and Ice Pick (4.6%) are the standard real ale offerings in the 3 outlets that form the M O’R ensemble. To be fair, I’d just come from the Beacon Hotel in Sedgley, which is a hard act to follow, so the next pub I visited was going to struggle to live up to my expectations. As a food stop it was fine and there was nothing wrong with the ale either. This place hasn’t been open in its present format for very long and it’s commendable that someone is prepared to open up a new pub and make a go of it. The Mad O’Rourke’s theme is for pies, ale, Irish music and spit and sawdust. This pub is clean and tidy but a bit too new and shiny to carry the authenticity of tradition. The Pie Factory in Tipton pulls it off but this felt like an imitation. Anyway, give it a go because it’s not a bad pub and it’s within a relatively small catchment area of some other great real ale pubs – the Fountain, the Old Bulls Head and the Crooked House.

A large Edwardian looking detached brick corner pub/restaurant with patio. The interior is open plan (though there is a private dining room upstairs). The decor is half red painted wall and half red and white tiles, with wood floor, with a smattering of sawdust for effect. There is a nice tiled fire place and a brick and tile bar/ordering area. Interest is supplied by a collection of pig and cow heads (FAKE of course!) and other butchers ephemera. The service is good, the clientele mixed; from families to miserable people like me and JB (my drinking buddy). The food is always nice, the special pies are a little overpriced, so go for the Desperate Dan and dont bother with the chips extras! Beer; tap stuff with their own keg stout which isnt bad. Three real ale handpulls which they do in all their outlets; Sledgehammer (strong) Lumphammer, which is weaker and the mid strength Icepick (supposed to be like Bathams but is nothing like it) but is decent. A food place really, not a pub, but we use this when in Gornal as we are happy with the fodder