PINT TO PINT

Codsall Station, Staffordshire

Out in the wild West Midlands, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Well, not that wild. Codsall is a sedate if sizeable village, two stops beyond Wolverhampton on the Birmingham to Shrewsbury line. The residents would see themselves as part of Staffordshire, but there’s a strong strain of Black Country in the food-and-drink offer from a pub that was once the ticket office and waiting room on Codsall Station.

Faggots and peas make up the pièce de résistance. Garden peas rather than mushy for me, if you don’t mind. Chips and gravy? Go on then. Rich gravy, to be sure, and a proper accompaniment to a flavoursome combination of pigs’ innards, supplied by a local butcher called Allan Bennett.

And there couldn’t be a better bitter to see off that slight spiciness than Holden’s Golden Glow, “born and brewed in the Black Country”, and meticulously well kept here on platform two. Pale yet robust, it weighs in at 4.4% abv and leaves a glowing aftertaste.

Although impressive guest beers are available, Holden’s holds its own on one side of the bar, with four hand pumps dispensing its ales. The Dudley-based brewery can be proud of its investment in this haven of decorative red brick that dates back to 1849. Conversion to pubhood came 150 years later.

There’s an expansive carpeted lounge, a more intimate boarded bar and, beyond, a tiled conservatory. Between is a snug-like compartment (during my visit, two venerable Brummies were chewing the fat along with their pork pies, before shipping out on the 13:27 to New Street).

Railway posters, pictures and paraphernalia are evident on every wall. In the snug there’s a poster advertising “New Diesel Express Services”, dated June 17, 1957. “Even that foot rest around the bar was welded from an old train line,” genial licensee Toby Lardner pointed out, as I contemplated a second pint.

But the 14:27 beckoned. No more Holden’s Glow for me: a man’s gotta go when a man’s gotta go.