The Victoria, Birmingham

Nice makeover of a Victorian Theatre Bar by the Bitter and Twisted Company. Lovely decor inside and good ale - a well kept Salopian Golden Thread. Worth seeking out. Visit blogged at http://bit.ly/2pxONu4

Just a short walk from New Street station, this is a large street corner pub with several rooms around a centrally positioned servery. You enter into a small angular space with the servery directly opposite. This area has dark floorboards, wood panel-effect wallpaper and walls painted in subtle pastel shades, with some large stained arched window along the front. Seating is in the form of comfy button backed banquettes and standard chairs and there is a good amount of standing room in front of the unusual bar counter with its padded frontage. Heading to the right, you move down into a lower lounge area with its own servery where all the handpulls can be found. The room here has tile and wooden flooring, long padded benches, a mix of lincrusta and retro-patterned wallpaper and some more of those fine stained glass windows, shaded by some huge, heavy drapes. This room felt a lot more homely than the first and was decorated with some promotional posters, a portrait of Queen Victoria and an odd painting of two men which had two real bowler hats suspended above it on wires, so that when viewed from the correct angle, it appeared as though the men were wearing the hats. To the rear, there is a third room with some more comfy seating options underneath some large paintings of what might best be described as popular tattoos - for example, one is an image of a woman sat inside a martini glass. On handpull, there were five ales available - Anarchy Blonde Star and Antichrist Black IPA, Blackjack Devil's Bedpost, Celt Bleddyn and Purity Mad Goose. These options didn't entirely marry with the list of available ales in the front bar, so it might be best to wander down into the right hand bar to check the full range. Keg brews included offerings from Weird Beard, Kernel, Northern Monk and Beavertown and there was a good craft bottle range as well. My pint of the Devil's Bedpost was decent enough, but probably just past its prime. I've been meaning to visit this pub for ages but never seemed to find a way to include it on a crawl, so I made a special effort to go out of my way to visit this time and I was very pleased I did. I found the pub to be a well presented and comfortable place to enjoy some of their interesting beers and was surprised to find that it wasn't far busier than it actually was. I'd say this is one of the best options on this side of New Street station and I'm sure I'll be back before long.

Several hand pulls on the bar, but only 2 brews available. We all opted for a half of Mad Goose by Purity and beat a hasty retreat. Not the greatest pub in town, probably won't be back.