The Swan Inn, Walsall

Basic, single-bar pub with the falling down exterior signage hardly raising confidence... Once inside, you find a single bar plus a side room (with a pool table) featuring a limited amount of tatty semi-modern furniture in the former and more traditional tables in the other. The unusually high counter is made from rough timber panels which may have been reclaimed from elsewhere, as might the bar-back? Not really expecting to find any real ale, the AJ'S Ruby (£3.20) available from one of the pair of handpumps proved surprisingly drinkable.

Pub is open again. What can you say. Its a freehouse now apparently. No real atmosphere - seems the usual crowd have gone and its replaced with youths and kids walking around like dazed cattle with a coke or a lager in their hands. The bar is half stripped of paint the seating seems to be just some strange mis matched olde looking tall pew type things and the rest of the pub is still the same old state. Karaoke is still on a friday so nothing new and the same singer sing the same songs as I found out. The beer was ok - ish. There was no where to sit, no where to stand and it felt a strange place to be. Id imagine any other night it would be quiet like the old days? I dont know.

Now back open again - no real ale mind.