Birmingham’s ancient pub has been nominated for ‘Best Beer Garden’ in the 2019 Great British Pub Awards.
The Old Crown in Deritend, Digbeth, has been standing proud in Birmingham for around 650 years, keeping up to date with hearty gastropub food, popular live music, DJs and events and a recently renovated botanical gin garden.
The grade II listed pub is Birmingham’s oldest secular building, and managed to scoop up a recent win in the Midlands’ Food, Drink & Hospitality Awards, winning ‘Traditional Pub of the Year.’
The Old Crown boasts a large, traditional bar with original Victorian features along with eleven hotel rooms, one of which Queen Elizabeth I once stayed in. Their beer garden is known as Digbeth’s best suntrap, recently renovated into a botanical gin garden. A newly added seating area surrounds a giant TV screen within a bright shipping container which has shown the Wimbledon, cricket and rugby matches this summer.
The garden also includes a one of a kind mural by street artist Annatomix, a telephone box, bathtub, well and outside bar decorated in flowers by artist Philth. The garden has been home to eclectic events all year, including a St. Patrick’s Parade Day Party, Fleetwood Mac themed night, pub quiz with Big Keith from The Office (UK) and an Elton John tribute playing piano live in the garden.
Ciaran Healy, owner of The Old Crown was delighted with the nomination, adding:
It is a great honour to be nominated for ‘Best Beer Garden’ in the Great British Pub Awards, to have been selected from hundreds of pubs and make it into the final six is really exciting, and it makes sense seeing as if we’re known as Digbeth’s sun trap! We put a lot of effort into our beer garden and outdoor area, everything is thought out with our community in mind to bring them the best experience possible. Good luck to everyone nominated!
The Old Crown recently took home ‘Best Traditional Pub’ in the Midlands’ Food, Drink & Hospitality Awards, which was hosted at the Aston Villa Football grounds in June. Their neighbours, Digbeth Dining Club, also had luck with their win in ‘Best Food/Drink/Festival Operator of the Year’.
For more information on The Old Crown, please visit www.theoldcrown.com, and for more information on the Great British Pub Awards, visit https://www.greatbritishpubawards.co.uk/