Duke of York, Wolverhampton

Attractive exterior which holds some oddness within. Four ales on the go (I forget which as I’ve mislaid my notes but I don’t remember being exactly blown away by the quality). The interior has some nice traditional touches, such as a snug but is quite tatty. The clientele were quite rough-and-ready and I felt a bit uncomfortable. It’s not one I’d rush to get back to again, to be honest.

This is a traditional Victorian pub owned by Enterprise Inns that was called the Duke of York until the 1960’s when it closed and reopened as a bank. It was converted back to a pub and renamed in 1996, the interior was faithfully restored to a similar design to that of the late 1800’s. The interior consists of three small rooms, a public bar on the left and a small snug on the right as you enter and a second small snug at the back of the pub also on the right. The public bar has a very traditional enclosed bar counter on the right of the room with a nice cast iron coal fuelled fire place opposite, old pictures of other local pubs and two flat screen TV’s (one at the front of the room, one at the back). The front snug has a small counter in the left corner, wooden bench seats and brewery memorabilia on the walls. The snug at the back is very easy to miss as you must walk to the end of the public bar and turn right, here you will find a dart board surrounded by old Wolves FC photos on the back wall of the pub and opposite this is the entrance to the second small snug which has a serving hatch that connects to the front snug, a flat screen TV and various Wolves FC memorabilia. There is a small courtyard with picnic style tables out the back. Thankfully the owners have seen sense and repainted the frontage black and white instead of the previous fluorescent pink! Regular ales are Holden’s Golden Glow and a rotating beer from the Ludlow Brewery, Boiling well on this visit with two changing guest beers which were Green King Old Speckled Hen and Shepherd Neame Spitfire (GBG 2010) A great traditional city centre pub with lots of character and characters, I totally agree with the previous reviewer’s observations on the mix of people that regularly use this pub, they can be a bit scary. Even the staff are a little bonkers, during this visit a middle aged lady behind the bar started F-ing and Blinding at some of the customers for no apparent reason! Not the kind of place that you would take the wife and kids, don’t let this put you off though; this is still a good pub for a nice pint as long as you don’t mind a bit of excitement every now and then, one of the better real ale pubs in the centre.