Tonight sees the presentation of the Camra Birmingham “Pub of the Year” Award - for the THIRD year running - to relative newbie bar “Hop & Scotch”. It’s a tremendous place despite being in the Kings Heath area of the city, and fully merits all the plaudits it receives. But the fact that the end result is a good ‘un should not detract from the curious way “POTY” seems to be decided in this neck of the woods.
Hopper - it's deja vu all over again!
I am not a member of Camra although I have always agreed with its aims and supported it from the sidelines - or at least until it embraced the “craft beer” chimera. Accordingly, I was not involved in the marking system used to rate pubs for the POTY award.
Not so long back there were rumours that the POTY award for one year had been “rigged” (and there were some grounds to believe this was true). More importantly, there have been ongoing allegations that the process had been “politicised” so that there are individuals or groupings voting who are hostile to certain pubs. Whether or not there is any substance in this is a moot point, but the fact that neither “The Wellington” nor “The Old Moseley Arms” even made the long list of runners and riders for this year’s prize does get the juices of conspiracy theorists well and truly flowing.
The Welly is one of the finest real ale pubs in the land, let alone in Birmingham. Alas - and it breaks my heart - I am boycotting my local pub “home” (and all other hostelries run by rapacious pubco, Black Country Ales) thanks to “Catgate”*. Accordingly I cannot be accused of bias in writing this. A source close to The Welly recently told me that, “any city in Britain would be proud to have a pub like The Welly in its centre” - and s/he is absolutely right.
It seems that there is a faction in Brum Camra who have some sort of beef about the The Welly’s landlord, the legendary Nigel “Noige” Barker. If that is remotely true then these people should be ashamed of themselves. Firstly, Nige was the messianic leader who brought the Brummie Tribe out the keg wilderness into the promised land of real ale. Secondly, although he is obliged to serve the BCA slop at The Welly there is always a splendid selection of other ales available and, most significantly, it is almost always brilliantly kept. Quite simply, Nige has done more for real ale in this city than anyone else.
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The Old Mo very successfully marries a traditional two-room Brummie pub with internal and external seating areas and is, or course, renowned for its Indian food offering. Like The Welly, people come from far and wide to visit. In the Old Mo’s case many cricket fans brave the walk from Edgbaston to round off the sporting day in style. Very recently, I have sat talking with folk in the Mo from Manchester, Leicestershire and Dublin! Great - but not good enough for the local Camra “tickers” apparently.
Again, as with The Wellie, both landlords are highly-experienced. Nige is known in the pub world nationally as well as locally. Sukhi at The Mo has clocked-up over 25 years service.
Last year, The Old Mo suffered a grievous blow with the loss of Linsay Tobin**. She will never be replaced, but Sukhi is rebuilding a smashing team. I was talking to him just the other night and he is looking to the future - a most encouraging thing in the current climate.
And yes, local CAMRA members, please remember that our local pubs - those that survived the pandemic - face an existential threat of a magnitude much larger than seen for many a long year. From the trend towards youthful sobriety to Starmer/Reeves, the dangers lurk. Hop & Scotch (a conversion of a former shop) is showing what can be done to foster a community atmosphere in a modern setting, but if Camra members dislike pubs like the Welly and Mo so much they can’t even make it onto the POTY “long list” they seem to have diverged a very long way indeed from my view of what constitutes a good pub. I would like to be present though if any of the Camra “tickers” have the cojones to tell Nige and Sukhi what they are doing wrong …
