The Beacon Hotel, West Midlands, pub review

Set aside any disquiet that the “Hotel” part of the title above may trigger in your pub-loving breast. Rooms are for supping rather than sleeping here, in what is a tap house serving the fine Black Country ales of Sarah Hughes, who began brewing at the pub in 1921.

Her formidable Dark Ruby mild still weighs in at 6% ABV, thanks to her grandson John who restarted the brewery in 1987.

Like the other Hughes brews, it’s still served in dimpled mugs. “The tankards are part of a long tradition,” says manager Alex Marchant.

“They made it seem a bit more upmarket with a traditional old-fashioned aesthetic.” So traditional and old-fashioned, indeed, that the pub’s Victorian interior has been listed by English Heritage.

No messing with that “tap room”, where the most recent update was the electrification of the gas lamps. Nor with the snug opposite, its piano framed by lace curtains and perched on a carpet that might have been imported from India in the days of the Raj.

To order a drink from the central passageway, you have to duck your head under an ancient glass screen. Little upward-sliding hatches, meanwhile, are used to pass pints: one way to the snug, the other to the “smoke room”.

The latter is the most expansive room by far, its wood-panelled walls broken up by nautical oil paintings. It’s here that I settle after a tour that has included the “veranda” overlooking the garden – and the outside toilets – not to mention a conservatory with a veritable forest of potted plants.

A solitary aspidistra stands behind the regular seat of Mick Betts, a flat-capped ex-brickie who regales me with tales of the pub’s former pigeon club and Shetland pony.  Meanwhile, I’m seeing off the Pale Amber, a tasty session beer at a mere 4%. The Surprise is surprisingly paler but even hoppier at 5%.

Both go well alongside my substantial pork pie, with which I’ve declined the offer of mustard. Had it been French, maybe (or mais oui). But I suspect that might not be de rigueur in this beacon among Black Country boozers.

129 Bilston Street, Sedgley, West Midlands DY3 1JE

01902 883380; sarahhughesbrewery.co.uk