The Sir Henry Newbolt (JD Wetherspoon), Bilston

Yet another typical small town Spoon's. One long room with a slightly art deco feel, and a small patio area at the rear, mainly used by smokers. Only a couple of guest ales supplementing the usual stuff, and nothing local, which is disappointing.

A routine conversion of a dull-looking shop, and the narrow side patio beer garden is the only thing that enlivens this bog-standard 'spoons. Disappointingly, just five of ten handpumps were in operation, with Backyard Gold (£2.40) and Hyde's München Blonde being about the only real ales of interest.

Henry Newbolt was a famous poet who was born in Bilston in 1862 and was famous for his patriotic ballads. Well I've never heard of him but he was before my time. I wonder if he would have written a ballad about the place named after him. This is a fairly typical later (2000) shop conversion that is a single long room filled with the usual Spoons furnishings. The bar is down the right and has two banks of five pumps. With the 2 GK beers doubled up and Doom Bore this only left five available and these consisted of four Spring festival ales and Bateman's Hooker. I went for the Bateman's Hooker and the Everard's Townshend's JCIPA both at £2.10 a pint and both in good condition. This seemed like a reasonable Spoons to me, more so as the toilets were not at the end of several flights of stairs.

Typical Weatherspoon house (formerly a shop)offering a great range of ales and food at great prices but , as usual, the house lacks character and atmosphere. It is like sitting in a waiting room - shame.