Waggon & Horses, Halesowen

This is one of the Black Country Ales "beer festival" pubs. Although it has a long frontage onto the main road the only entrance I could find was on the left side of the building. Inside it has the bar along the long frontage with more comfortable areas either side of it. The area along the bar is not very deep and overall the pub is not as large inside as you might think from the exterior. However, the long bar does allow a huge row of hand pumps with a smaller set to the right devoted mainly to cider. The thirteen beers available included the three usual BCA ones and the rest ranged from smaller micros up to the long established Black Sheep. I went for Harbour IPA (£3.25) which was excellent. This is another superb BCA outlet.

Fantastic Black Country Ales house, with a two-room bar along the frontage and a separate seating area to the other side of the entrance. Tidily decorated throughout in an appropriately traditional style. Very impressive range of 15 real ales and four ciders on handpump at prices ranging from £2.95 to £3.60, from which I went for the Beowolf Chase Pale (but would have been happy to try almost anything from the chalk and TV boards here).

Official site of Waggon & Horses - www.blackcountryales.co.uk

Official site of Waggon & Horses - www.blackcountryales.co.uk

In the process of redecoration on our visit and to our admiration the barmaid told us that herself and a pal were painting the pub themselves out of hours. Have to call again when it's complete. We also called in on a Friday afternoon and the pub was quite busy. There were 14 ales on handpump on this visit - straight away, I went for a pint of Bathams. Next moved onto the Plain Ales Sheep Dip and Tunnfield Stiperstones. This is an excellent pub, with other chatty drinkers.