Gosta Green Pub, Birmingham

...accompanied by four years of Gosta Green being my local Scream Pub.


=== Location, Location, Location ===
The main entrance of this pub, named after the area in which it's found, can be found on Holt Street. It's literally a stone's throw from Aston University's campus and Birmingham City University's Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. It's also right next to Aston Science Park. There's a bus stop just across the road, ...
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During term time, Gosta quietens down a lot, given that most of the staff and clientele are students, it's understandable. Still, it's a nice place to meet up for a couple of drinks and just chill out if you're staying around during the holidays. Beware though, it does tend to close up earlier outside of term time


Maybe I'm getting older, but my one gripe about this place is that the music can tend to be on the loud side, ... more

Four years of study were accompanied by four years of Gosta Green being my local Scream Pub.

Location, Location, Location

The main entrance of this pub, named after the area in which it's found, can be found on Holt Street. It's literally a stone's throw from Aston University's campus and Birmingham City University's Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. It's also right next to Aston Science Park. There's a bus stop just across the road, served by several different buses, and a taxi rank on Aston's campus about a five minute walk away. It's a good 20 minutes or so on foot from New Street station and the city centre.

It's therefore frequented by students, particularly Astoners, but it's also popular with staff and people working at the Science Park.

The Building and its Interior

A pretty nice looking building, there are two entrances - the main one being on Holt Street. The side entrance, which is most frequently used by students coming from Aston's campus is found on Lister Street.

Inside, the decor has changed in the four years I've frequented this bar. It was last updated in my final year of uni, so it's pretty up-to-date. The layout has been changed and I think I prefer the new set up. The bar forms an L-shape (backwards and upside down) but there's extra room on one side, which, under the old layout, was regularly closed with a partition wall. Under the new layout, I've never seen the new section closed, which is a great addition. However, this section used to have a second, though rarely used bar. This has now been done away with.

The bar is long and your main focus as you walk in. There's a little step around the bar, so if you're little, you stand a chance of getting noticed by the bar staff.

The seating areas vary, giving you great choice depending on why you've come to the pub. For example, there are sofa areas, great for hanging out or having a coffee and a chat. There are high tables with stools, long tables with benches, and normal tables with chairs, perfectly for eating.

There's also a beer garden, only open in the summer months, obviously extremely popular when the sun comes out, but braved by many in all weathers, particularly with the smoking ban. They do have heated lamps, and even a mini-bar outside during busy periods which sells bottles.

The decor is quite cool, before it was a bit sorta grungy, mostly because it was worn around the edges. Now it's been updated it's definitely cool, browns and blacks - leather sofas, and some really cool light fixtures, including a net of fairy lights over one section and some cool chandeliers made out of glass tankards. They help create sort of ambient lighting, giving the place back the underground, grungy, rough around the edges feel it once had, but at the same time giving it a softer, contemporary feel.

Drinks

They serve what your typical pubs would serve - a selection of beers and ciders, bottled and draught; spirits and mixers; shots; cocktails; hot drinks; soft drinks - all at very reasonable prices - around the £2 mark for a pint, £1.25 for a single spirit and a mixer, £3.30 for a cocktail (£8.50 for a pitcher) just to give you a rough idea.

There is no drinks menu - only a cocktail menu, detailing what individual cocktails they sell, as well as what pitchers and mixed shots they sell. This has been tweaked over my four years here, but the most recent menu has been the most exciting (September 2009). It's hard to say when they will next change it, but they offer a wide variety of cocktails, from classics such as Sex on the Beach and Long Island Iced Tea, to cocktails I haven't seen elsewhere, such as Jaffa Cakes and Kung Fu.

You can buy bottles of wine starting from very competitive prices (£5 a bottle)..right up to a bottle of Champagne - though I don't suppose they sell too many of these.

They also sell your usual bar snacks - crisps, peanuts - although as you would expect, the prices are generally rounded up.

Food

They also have a food menu and serve your general sort of pub grub from 11:30am until 9pm Monday to Friday, and from 10am right through until 9pm at weekends.

The menu is extensive, with something to cater for everyone. There are no starters to speak of but there are platters and side dishes to choose from if you're not that peckish or want to share something.

Salads, sandwiches are jacket potatoes are given an interesting new twist thanks to their range of fillings including sweet chilli chicken, brie and red onion chutney and beef chilli.

They offer a nice range of 'good, honest pub grub' in their mains section, many of which are included in the 2 meals for £5.50 offer. Otherwise, individually, they range in price from £4 to around £7.

There are an incredible 20 different burgers on the menu, catering for all tastes and hunger levels, with 4 double stacked burgers. There's also a page in the menu dedicated to one of their greatest triumphs - a beer and burger for £3.75.

If you fancy something sweet, there are 10 puddings to choose from, ranging in price £2.50 to £6 (although this is for a fondue platter that you are, in theory, supposed to share. Whether you do so in practice is of course entirely up to you).

There's also a page dedicated to hot drinks, including a range of alcoholic hot chocolates.

It's worth mentioning that this pub also offers breakfasts and you can purchase these at all times of the day.

The menu is well laid-out and enjoyable to read, with spicy, vegetarian and healthy options on the menu clearly labelled.

Pricewise it's very competitive and the beer and burger offer is a definite favourite with many.

~Opinion~
From my own personal experience here, the food isn't bad. For what you pay, you'll generally get a satisfying, filling meal. My main problem with the food here is more to do with the kitchen/service.

Like a lot of pubs, you place your food order at the bar. You'll then be given a bottle with a number which is your table number and food will be brought to your table. At least, that's the theory. I've found on a number of occasions that the transition from kitchen to table is not always the smoothest. My worst experience to date involved me ordering a chicken burger. After everyone else had received their food and was well on their way to finishing, I decided it might be an idea to enquire about my food. So I asked at the bar, and was told that they'd check with the kitchen. When my food still hadn't arrived, I was contemplating asking again, only to be told by a member of the kitchen staff that they didn't have any chicken burgers left, would I mind if they used a chicken breast fillet instead? My food finally arrived ten minutes later, by which point the rest of my friends had finished their food and one girl had even ordered (and received!) her pudding.

Though I've never had anything quite that bad happen since, I've noticed on numerous occasions that the kitchen is heavily understocked. It's incredibly rare to be able to get your first order. One time before I even had time to tell the barman what I wanted, he reeled off a long list of ingredients that weren't available, just in case this affected our order. While it's disappointing, I have no problem with the occasional 'Sorry, there's no chilli con carne on the menu today' or 'I'm afraid the spaghetti bolognese isn't available today' - but when the kitchen is out of such basic ingredients as chicken, tomatoes etc, which affect so many different dishes, it's a little bit of a pain.

I've also had it happen more than once that my order has somehow been misunderstood and I haven't been charged properly, which has caused issues. On one such occassion I ordered a fish finger sandwich for myself and a meal for a friend. The barmen even asked me to repeat the order. And yet, 15 minutes later, my friend got her meal and I was brought a chip butty. When I told the woman that this wasn't what I had ordered, she went away and checked the receipt with the bar. I was told that the order for a chip butty had been placed and subsequently that's what I had paid for, so if I wanted the fish finger sandwich I would have to pay the difference. It was a real annoyance and meant that once again I had to wait for my food.

It's a real shame, as I feel the service and all of these problems really lets this place down. It's down to earth, decent pub food, nothing to write home about but I've never been dissatisified with the actual food here - but I feel fairly nervous ordering here now after all these incidents.

Entertainment

When this place first started out, they did used to have live music. They tend to steer away from that now, but this place is always fairly lively. They have a massive projector screen as well as TV screens dotted around. The TV screens generally play music videos, although all of the screens are used to show sporting events - mostly football but also rugby and other sports. They screened the World Cup matches here at the end of my first year of uni and the atmosphere was amazing.

They have quiz nights on a Sunday and regularly like to change things around and keep things lively. This pub is a regular on the Aston pub crawls and a popular place to have pre-drinks before hitting the Arcadian or Broad Street.

Throughout my time at uni, there's always been one night a week when certain drinks are £1. Last year it was called Quids, this year the concept has slightly changed, and drinks start at £1.25 on a Monday night. You can guarantee that it'll be rammed on these nights.

They have a couple of pool tables which cost £1 a game. Great fun but they're generally always occupied, so you have to get in there quick if you fancy a game. They also have pub machines dotted around when you can play on tonnes of different games.

Keep an eye out for different events too, they tend to have things like Cider Festivals and barbeques in the beer garden, which are always great fun.

Ambience

To be honest, you can guarantee that this place will be packed on most nights of the week. The bar gets pretty busy and seats are almost always taken, so you gotta get there early if you fancy getting seats.

During term time, Gosta quietens down a lot, given that most of the staff and clientele are students, it's understandable. Still, it's a nice place to meet up for a couple of drinks and just chill out if you're staying around during the holidays. Beware though, it does tend to close up earlier outside of term time

Maybe I'm getting older, but my one gripe about this place is that the music can tend to be on the loud side, which makes it a rather unpleasant place to try and have a conversation. Obviously, the music volume depends on the time of day - it's not so loud at 11am, but at some point during the evening they do crank up the sound system and I tend to come out of this place with a rather sore throat from having shouted so much.

Facilities

For such a small place, I think they actually have quite a lot of toilets. I think this may have something to do with how busy the place gets, however it's definitely a good thing. There are two sets of male and female toilets and there is one disabled toilet. I have used both sets of female toilets and found them to be...satisfactory. The toilets themselves are generally clean, but sometimes there are issues such as the doors not shutting properly or missing/broken toilet seats. Once I had a bit of a scary situation with a very stiff door which didn't seem to want to open - fortunately there was a gap at the bottom which allowed me to put my hand under and pull it open. The gap's also useful for getting a girlfriend to hold the door shut for you with her foot.

Each bathroom is a little cramped also, so although there's a full-length mirror, there isn't much room to make use of it, especially not without standing in the way. Having said this, it somehow never gets that busy in there, even when the place is rammed and I have, surprisingly, never had to wait more than about 5 seconds for a toilet.

I can't speak for the male toilets, but I've never heard any complaints about them, so I can assume that they are usually in a similar condition to that of the ladies.

Staff

The staff are mostly made up from students, so a friendly face is guaranteed. On busy nights they do have bouncers on the door and they do tend to ID. I've found the staff in general to be very friendly, although sometimes they're a bit unfair in terms of who they serve and when. They also tend to get a bit stroppy when it comes to closing time. I can understand that they want to clear up and go home, and I appreciate that, but pretty much as soon as they call time at the bar they're pressurising you into finishing the pint they've just happily served you.

The ID situation is a little bit annoying too - although I don't mind being IDed, they've become decidedly stricter in terms of what they accept as ID. I appreciate this, and have found this to be the case for my whole time at uni - places will only accept my driving licence or my passport, so that's fine. However, with foreign students, it's a bit more tricky. The only form of ID that they will accept from foreign students is a passport. When you consider the problems with using foreign driving licences (French ones are flimsy things pretty much made from paper, while Polish ones are so incomprehensible that the police are looking for the very elusive "Mr. Driving Licence" who appears to have committed driving offences all over the place...), it's fairly understandable why driving licences are a no go. So, as much of a pain as it is to have to carry your passport around with you when you go out drinking, it would appear that that is what foreign students will have to do.......except for one small problem...

A number of my friends being from mainland Europe, I've seen them politely but firmly asked to leave Gosta on many occasions after having tried to use their national ID cards as a valid proof of age, only to be told that they can only accept passports. That's fine, but they don't have passports. I could rant about this all day, needless to say I think it's ridiculous that an identity card that will give a person entry to our country will not allow them to buy a beer once they're in.

My boyfriend, for one, tried to challenge this after they wouldn't accept his National ID card. He was told that it's a scheme that pubs in the area are adopting, although he's never had a problem using his ID card anywhere else.

Yellow Card

Worth a mention, this is Scream Pub's version of a loyalty card. You need student ID and £1 to get yourself one, but they give you discounts throughout the acadmedic year, normally knocking between 50p and £1 off drinks. I've never bothered investing in one myself, I usually just borrow a friends when I go up to the bar. Still, you can use them in all Scream Pubs, so if you visit friends at other unis, it could save you a few pennies at their local Scream pub too.

Overall Opinion

Over my four years at uni (three really because I was abroad for one) a great deal of my time was spent in this pub. It's so close to campus, making it a great place to meet for drinks after lectures, or to grab some lunch in between lectures.

There's a great ambience in there, it's THE place to meet up before hitting the clubs, even though it's a bit out of the way of town, the taxi rank on campus is within crawling distance and if you live on campus it's ideal.

Whether you're looking for a big night out, or just a quiet-ish one with friends, Gosta has it all. Ok, so it's not the best place to sit down for a heart to heart, or to hold a book discussion group or whatever, but it is a laid-back place, somewhere you can go in jeans and a hoodie and not feel out of place, or a great place for cocktails if you're dressed to the nines for a night on the tiles. It's affordable and just has a great student vibe about it.

It's also not a bad place to take the parents if they are visiting for the weekend or dropping you off on campus and fancy a quick bite. Having said that, if you're going to get your parents to give you a free lunch, there are certainly nicer places you can take them, and in terms of little brothers and sisters etc, this place isn't suitable for children.

Despite being a bit of a let down sometimes with the food, this is a place I enjoy going and would definitely continue to frequent if I were still a student. Alas, I'm not, and though this is probably not a place I'd go out of my way to go to, if I were a young professional working in the area, I'd happily pop in for a drink with friends.

4 out of 5.

NB: Although this isn't a review of Scream pubs in general, I have visited other Scream pubs. While Gosta is my favourite (obviously) the others that I have visited are fairly similar in terms of their vibe and what they offer. However I think prices may vary depending on location. You can find information including menus and prices for your local Scream pub on the Scream Pub website. 

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