The King's Ditch, Tamworth

If only all micropubs were like this! It's styled as a proper pub but just really small. A single room with undressed brick walls, very green dried hops, lots of brewery mirrors, light and bright and comfortable. A friendly bunch inside and I got chatting easily enough, including with the owners. Four ales on, served from a cold room; Shiny Wrench (NBSS 3), Hawkshead Windermere Pale, Kinver Crystal and Kinver Seren, a cask lager I can’t recall (4), alongside 14 ciders. A fairly unique touch were the booklets at the tables telling you their full range (loads of cider, bottles, fruit wines and local butcher sourced pub snacks) with a bit of honest story about the pub and some local history. Also belatedly noticed the TV screen with a live CCTV feed to the cold room, so you can observe the action unfolding. Really enjoyed my stop here and would make sure I called in again if in town. 8.5

Most micro of micros. Six tables. All in use when I come in. You can't just walk out can you :-) So I ordered a decent Yeovil Ales Harlequin and managed to perch on a stool in front of the curtain that hides the passage way to the gents. Everyone stares into the middle of the room. No music to break the tension. If there was a clock, it would be an old one that ticks slowly. A tv is tuned to the beer room, which offers mild entertainment when ever someone orders a pint. Recongnised locals in the street generate some chat to guess where they have been/going/having for tea. I just don't get micros.

This micropub is something of a veteran having opened in early 2015. It's a small room as noted below and there is another room up some stairs where the second one is rather steep. There is a bar counter but everything is served from the cold room. Four beers were available Green Duck Duck Blonde, Furnace Reprezent, Tollgate Ashby Pale and Magpie Cheery Raven. I went for the Duck Blonde (£3.30) which was OK but a bit lifeless. As the other three beers were all roughly the same strength I went for a Nottingham cider (£3.50) which I thought was slightly on the warm side despite coming from the cellar. Looking through their menu I noticed they stocked a few speciality gins which is fine but then discovered they also sell four rubbish mainstream spirits probably sourced from the local supermarket. For me this is as bad as them having a font with John Smith's Smooth Crap on the bar. Overall I thought this one was a bit of a let down.

Decent micro-pub with six small tables and some basic bench seating on three sides. Decor based on brewery mirrors and hop bines, but also plenty of Camra awards for cider on one wall (with up to 16 available). Four real ales on gravity, poured in a rear room (with a CCTV feed so you can see all the action...), including Mount Hood Raw (£3.30) and beers from Nethergate, Scarborough and Slightly Foxed.