Ale Hub, Kingswinford

Ahhhh... my nemesis - a shop converted micro with a very pedestrian beer offering in a brightly lit room with tables more suited to a school cafeteria. I can understand why they might exist in beer deserts but this has at least four other pubs in short proximity, including a much cheaper spoons with better selection of beers. My Oakham Bishops Farewell instantly annoyed me by being at least 15% head. Short measure, that I couldn't be bothered to argue about. I wanted to move on.

Part of a small chain of pubs, I'd only previously been to one of these in Worcester. That one was quite busy on an evening visit. The Kingswinford branch was dead on our late Sunday lunchtime visit, with just one other customer and the barman. There is a single room with a simple design. Tables are all fairly small with plenty of seating around them. It all looked like it could get a bit cramped inside if all seats were taken. Each table was equipped with plastic flowers in gin bottles, which felt a bit tacky. The bar is to the rear right. Wye Valley Butty Bach is the regular beer. The guest beer was Birmingham Blonde Brummie, with Hobson's Town Crier coming soon. The cider was Thatcher's Stan's Cheddar Valley. Craft beers available were Attic Intuition & Brooklyn Stonewall IPA, whilst there were plenty of speciality gins. Music was playing. There are no TVs, but plenty of events are advertised, including quiz nights on a Monday, live music, bingo, open mic nights and painting sessions. Dominoes could be found on a shelf opposite the bar. Food consists of cobs and Scotch eggs on the bar. Parking here is a little difficult. The public car park to the rear has a couple of spaces for pub staff, but otherwise parking is an extortionate £1.80 per hour. With the car park almost empty, it probably goes some way to explaining why this shopping street was quiet and the pub had only one other customer. Credit where credit is due. The pub did have a cider on handpull. But overall, I felt that it lacked atmosphere, instead feeling rather soulless.

Smart little micropub. A good addition to Kingswinford. 4 ales on - Butty Bach, Theakston Lightfoot, Milk Stout and Doctor Morton's Christmas Hamster. The 2 I tried were excellent. Worth a visit.

A relatively new outlet for this expanding micro-pub mini-chain. Usual deal inside a converted shop unit, although there are more tables than in certain other of their outlets around the West Midlands. Quite plainly decorated apart from the corner bar. Four real ales on handpump: Butty Bach, Titanic White Star, Relativity from Oakham (£3.80) and Butcombe's Haka.