#275 The Sly Old Fox, Birmingham : 2000 to 2020

When visiting Chinatown in Birmingham or on a night out at the Hippodrome Theatre, The Old Fox was always a must visit pub for at least one pint. It was (and still is) a proper pub with a bar and a lounge that is populated with people from all walks of life. It's a pub I'd visited on numerous occasions before our first canal related encounter on the evening of Thursday 7th September 2000.

I suspect that it was our last pub of the evening after sampling one of the many Chinese restaurants in the vicinity.

Our next visit was on the evening of Wednesday 1st September 2004 near the end of a journey back from Oxford and a trip on the Ashby Canal.

I'm fairly sure that the interior was largely unchanged, but the outside had undergone a major redecoration.

We haven't been back on canal based visits, but over the ensuing years I've had the occasional pint (or three) with non-boating friends. The next photos, though, have been from occasions when I happened to be passing by with my camera to hand.

This one is from Thursday 21st August 2014 as I was taking pictures in the vicinity.

No discernible changes from 10 years earlier...apart from the chairs outside for the smokers!

This final picture is from late afternoon on Friday 24th January 2020 as I strolled back to my car which was parked nearby.

A complete external makeover and a name change as well to The Sly Old Fox. It has been this way for at least a few months (probably longer) but I'm fairly sure that it is largely unaltered inside.

I noticed on the first picture the name Chandlers Brewery, which I confess, I'd never heard of. Their head office is in Witton and has the same address as Uncle's Money, a pawnbroker. It would appear that Chandlers Brewery Limited was established in 1990 seemingly just to run The Old Fox. The company is still going, but I doubt that they've brewed any beer!