The Stourbridge Lion, Stourbridge

Amber Taverns is set to re-open Lloyds Bar in Stourbridge High Street on September 30 after a £500,000 refurbishment

This is the older (Jan 2005) of the two Stourbridge Spoons and is a long narrow shop conversion. It winds it's way through to the rear of the building where there is a second bar that seems to be in permanent operation. Note that it is a Lloyds No 1 and there was a leaflet advertising Karaoke on Wednesday nights. Each bar has five pumps with no doubling up. The rear bar had the two usual GK beers, Doom Bore and two ciders from the recent festival. At the front there was Sadler's Worcester Sorcerer (Available Soon), Daleside Square Rigger IPA, Shepherd Neame Bishop's Finger, Adnam's Enraptured American Ale and Bateman's XXXB. I went for the Daleside IPA (£1.99) which was an unremarkable beer in good condition. This was the first West Midland's Spoons I've been to that's cheaper than London's cheapest but the same as The Thomas Mildmay in Chelmsford. It's not that bad and I got served quicker here than over the road.

Called in yesterday on our way to Stourbridge beer festival for a quick one, and found we wanted longer as they had a good range of ales available, mainly from their current beer festival. We bought a couple from the front bar, then went to the back bar to find some more beers there we fancied, so ended up with 4 decent beers. Friendly staff and good service.

We thought this Spoons was quite small until we walked through the narrow corridor and on into a larger room at the rear. This section of the pub was a lot noisier as it was taken over by Stourbridge's younger set. We tried Warwickshire Brewery Lady Godiva and Darling Bud, both were ok.