Hi there.
I'm a newbie so I haven't kept up to speed with all the postings on this thread, but I'd like to get in on it.
The first pint I ever bought for myself, (at the highly illegal age of 15) was in the Custard House, Blake Lane, Small Heath. It was a very popular place as I'm sure many of you would remember, with a sizeable function room upstairs as well as sporting a formidable darts team. It would be about 1975, and as far as I can recall I paid something like 40p for a pint of Carling. Then I incorporated the Avenue, Green Lane, The Country Girl (can't recall the road but it was the CG in Bordesley Green, not Selly Oak), and the Yew Tree as regular haunts. Incidentally does anyone remember a slim booklet by Fred Pearce just called Birmingham Pubs (I think). It featured pithy three or four line reviews of all the alehouses Pearce visited and was published around 1976. A typical review would be something like "What's known in the vernacular as a rough pub" (He's describing the Emily Arms in Highgate) "barmaid with scar on her cheek...blacks play cards in one corner, whites with tattoos glower in another...pub dog big and wolfish", that kind of thing. I'd love to flick through it again.
The Brum pubs I use most frequently these days are the Lamp, the Anchor and the White Swan in Digbeth, the newly refurbished and much improved Craven Arms next to the Mail Box, the legendary Wellington and Post Office Vaults and when possible the Black Eagle in Hockley.
Cheers.