Scruffy Murphy's, Birmingham

A Victorian street, when this site was the Horse and Grrom pub, lost under the 60/70s redevelopment of Birmingham. The Pen & Wig back in the 1980s, this place has little charm from the outside as it is built into the corner of a car-park. The interior has an L-shaped room, which is given over to the homage of rock/metal music. A small stage area is in one corner and a sound booth in another. The decor is one of that nicotine stained look, with green and wood walls, red ceiling (that which you can see through the plethora of T-shirts of different bands, an a wood floor. One wall has Marilyn Monroe paper, another has mounted CDS, while a third has some bottles - although these may have been left from the previous night. There is a dart board, but you would kill several people to play. Seating is wood beches and table/chairs. There are several TVs that had the sport on and the music was rock based (strange that) and at a decent level. The service is friendly and the clientele is really mixed - i pop in once in a blue moon and it always feels welcoming. Beer; no real ale, just the usual tap stuff - i had Guinness, which was fine. They do do a few bottles. Worth dropping in if you like the music.

Appalling from the outside, being the corner of a multi-story car park and in the current butt end and dingy part of town, and is unlikely to change even with ongoing Eastside developments, this is specialist pub that would only likely be used by fans of rock music. No real ale, there is keg Boddingtons that is ok. That being said, it appears to cater for a varying age group of rockers and the music stems from various periods to suit. It has a salon bar type of feel, with dark wood cladding, and then various posters dotted about, and its feel is better than you would expect. Normally I would probably mark this down as a 5, but on a personal level enjoyed the rock music and their ability to appeal to all genres/ages in that field. Therefore if you like your rock music, and rock bars, this is a great place to visit, and recieves extra marks from me for that aspect.