About Birmingham

Birmingham, often referred to as the Second City, is a vibrant and cosmopolitan place where there is always something going on. During the Industrial Revolution Birmingham was known as The City of 1,000 trades, unfortunately most of this manufacturing has gone and these days the city relies on commerce, culture and tourism.

Beer wise Birmingham was unique as this vast city was dominated by two breweries, the mighty Mitchells & Butlers and Ansells. The only other brewery to get any sort of foothold was Davenports, because of this there were traditionally very few freehouses in the city.

Whilst, in a way, it is sad to see the demise of two brewing giants, this has opened the market up to many more freehouses and a large number of pubs operated by the pubcos. Over the last few years both the availability and choice of real ale in Brum has increased beyond belief.

It was unthinkable a few years ago but there are now areas of the city where almost all the pubs serve real ale. Every pub in Harborne serves at least one ale and the majority of pubs in the Jewellery Quarter also serve cask ale.
 
Please use our Pub Guide and Real Ale Pub Crawls pages to help you get the most out of Birmingham's pubs.