Farmer Johns, Sutton Coldfield

A detached, white, low level brick build, with beer garden. A Marston’s pub and eatery. The interior is open plan around a central bar, a typical pubco kind of layout, with foody tables everywhere to accommodate diners from the basic budget menu. I didn’t eat. The décor is in white and wood, with a number of old photos of Streetly on the walls. There was Sky TV and the music, which was mixed but a bit loud, was turned down when the quiz night started. The service was very friendly – the majority of bar staff being young. The clientele was very mixed, from families to the old blokes in the corner. Beer; tap stuff with an untried Pedigree, but decent enough Banks’s Bitter and Marston’s Dragon Tail as guest on handpull Places like this are a bit soulless and common enough, the beer was fine, but unless I was passing and hungry, I wouldn’t really bother – but that goes for pubco places in general, this place was no worse and indeed a bit better than most of its kind from my experience.