May The Mild Be With You!

May is National Mild Month and a party of CAMRA members from Solihull & District branch set off on a minibus trip of the area to enjoy the milds available.

Now you would think with the number of pubs in Greater Solihull (over 90-please correct me if I'm wrong!) that there might be a goodly number of pubs that would purvey this beverage, but (sadly) to our knowledge there are only five pubs that regularly have a mild. It shows how hard it is to find mild, a sorry indictment of the fact that mild seems to becoming an endangered species.

Our journey started at The Hob's Meadow in Hob's Moat (near Solihull Ice Rink) where we had a pint of Ansells' Mild. Somewhat bizarrely the other real ale on offer was Old Speckled Hen, so a low gravity mild and a high gravity ale, with nowt in between! The mild was ok, but I can't say that Ansell's is my favourite mild, even though it is widely sold in the Midlands: to my taste it lacks character.

We had intended to go to The (excellent) Good Beer Guide listed Red Lion in Shirley, but I had rung round all the pubs on the planned itinerary beforehand, and unfortunately they had been experiencing quality problems with their cask mild, which is usually either Ansell's or the far superior Highgate Dark, the latter being one of the tastiest pints I've ever had. I had also had a similar message from The Case Is Altered in Five Ways, Warwickshire, i.e. quality problems, in fact exploding barrels from Hook Norton, but as The Case is not the easiest pub to get to because of the lack of local transport we still went there, particularly as it serves a good selection of bitters, and we weren't disappointed. It might just be out of our area but it's well worth the visit: no food (apart from crisps etc), no children, no mobiles, just good beer and conversation.

Next we set off for Henley. Despite the fact that the only chippy in the town was closed for refurbishment we did manage a Chinese takeaway as our food stop, and then sallied forth to The Black Swan, with a number stopping en route either in The Three Tunnes and/or The Blue Bell. By common consent the beers served at The Three Tunnes was too cold, is this to tempt lager drinkers? At The Black Swan we had Banks's Original, and we were left to consider the question: is it a mild or not?

Our next port of call was The Navigation at Lapworth where we were treated to the delights of Theakston's Mild, which I must say I enjoyed. There is quite a good range of ales at The Navvy, plus a real cider, plus very good (if a bit pricey) food, so well worth a visit. Finally we repaired to The Vaults in Knowle, our Pub of the Year for the last three years. Now they always have Ansell's mild on to complement the very good range of ales which always includes a guest), but when I rang them up they kindly offered to put on a mild as their guest, which in this case was Dark Star Mild for May, and very quaffable it was, probably a case of saving the best for last.

An enjoyable trip indeed. But if we don't go out there and drink the stuff, we'll lose it, so seek out these pubs that serve mild, otherwise it'll disappear.

Martin Collinge