The Dragon Inn (JD Wetherspoon), Birmingham

I'm knocking off all the city centre ones doing a Geocaching Adventure Lab Cache. Dont ask me why. This is the worst by a county mile. Dark and dingy inside. Two bars but one unmanned. I ordered a Black Pheasant, one of the guest ales, but after paying was told it was off. So were all the other guest ales. Upsold myself a Leffe - I am sure a more tolerant bar member would have let me off the difference. Oh no - much to the chargrin of my fellow spoonsters, she caculated the difference and made me pay twice. Avoid.

Not the best Spoons in the world, it has to be said. There is a bit of a bizarre layout with two separate bars despite the fact that the place is pretty much open plan. There was a set of hand pulls at each bar but these were duplicates, including Doom Bar, Ruddles, Oakham JHB and another guest that I can't remember. It was particularly busy on Sunday evening and there was a group of 9 of us but we managed to pounce on a table when one cleared so we could all sit together. We ordered food and some of the options weren't available due to a problem with the grill (so basically beefburgers were out) and we got a rather funny look of the barman when we tried to order pizza off the kids' menu and he said rather sarcastically "this is Wetherspoons mate, we don't do pizza" - I pointed it out to him on the menu and he explained they use the same menus nationally and some pubs may have a pizza oven but they don't. I didn't much care for his attitude though. Nobody seemed to be in any kind of rush to clear dirty plates or glasses off the tables and they were stacked up all over the place. Overall a dark gloomy Spoons with service to match. Its one saving grace is that there is no upstairs area so the toilets are on the ground floor.

Not the greatest spoons. My pint of Golden Newt tasted like there was one living in it and had to be returned. The Double Maxim was also off so only IPA and Abbotts to choose from - I chose neither. Thank god for the range of craft beers - the Devils Backbone saved the day! The food was decent though - perhaps I just called at a bad time for beer.

Set in Brum's Chinatown this is a fairly untypical JDW. It's rather dark and gloomy inside with a low ceiling, lots of wood and a mix of tiles and wooden floors around the bar areas. There are two bars and only the smaller one as you enter was in use. On a rainy Tuesday afternoon it wasn't all that busy. The beer choice was poor with GK IPA & Abbot, Doom Bore, Backyard Spring and Green Jack Trawlerboy's Best (I think!). I had a go at the Steak Club mixed grill here (£7.99) which included a drink so I went for the Banks's Devils Backbone on keg. The mixed grill was up to scratch. The standard guest ale price here is £2.49. I didn't think too much of this one but I've found in general that JDWs in the centre of large cities are inferior to their suburban counterparts.