The first principle of running a business must be to make a profit. Without profit a business can not survive and the individual who owns it will go hungry and those who work for it will lose their jobs. To make a business profitable the proprietor needs to make the products he sells attractive to and desirable to potential customers and at a price which they are prepared to pay. The business can be as glamorous or as down-to-earth as the proprietor likes as long as there are sufficient customers who are prepared to buy from it preferably on a regular basis. The business, particularly, a restaurant or dining establishment also needs to be situated in a location which is reachable and attractive and has ‘passing trade’ and it also needs to employ staff who know how to interact well with the customers. It is surprising how often, sometimes in a rush to open a restaurant, a restaurateur seem to ignore some or all of these points and therefore set their business on a course which will ultimately lead to failure.
And so to the Hopwood Inn in Hopwood, the first village across the border from southwest Birmingham on the road to Alvechurch and Redditch. Suddenly housing disappears as one heads out across Worcestershire and fields and farms reveal themselves in the green, rolling countryside where the dairy cows of Groveley Farm are grazing very peacefully and hills start to rise up in various directions - the Lickeys and the distant Cotswolds and Malverns. These latter two hills can be viewed from High Hill which looks down on drivers on the Birmingham to Redditch Road as they cross the Birmingham/Worcestershire border and the vista gives a fine idea of the extent of the beautiful rural West Midlands. And on arriving in Hopwood, a couple of mikes from the edge of Birmingham, one finds a peaceful, pretty canal passing under the road heading from Kings Norton on to Alvechurch and beside it is the picturesque, old redbrick Hopwood House which is a grand example of just how well a hospitality business can do when the owners of a business get things right.
Here, everything seems to tick all the boxes - a convenient, attractive location close to a large population who find it no trouble to get to the spot, the right sort of food at the right sort of price to appeal to that population, a clean, bright, spacious, comfortable, pleasantly decorated interior with good parking and lovely gardens for the good weather and hosts who know how to welcome their guests and serve them well. The Hopwood House, sited next to the canal, and all the more attractive for that, just about gets all of that right. It’s a British rural pub, part of the Marston’s chain. It has no pretensions, it strives to feed and slake the thirst of those who go there and does not try to be something it isn’t. It’s not a gastropub and not all the food lives up to expectations. But it suits the people it aims to serve and that is a good business and generally, when leaving it, the diner’s appetite is more than satisfied with food that, in the part, has given them pleasure.
But just at the moment, there really is something on the menu to make the diner drool with anticipation. We will recall Tom Shepherd’s success in the 2023 Great British Menu television series when his ‘cow pie’ was chosen to be the main course at the final banquet. Since then, his restaurant, Upstairs by Tom Shepherd in Lichfield, has been fully booked for seven or eight months ahead and then, it seems, tables are only available for groups of four or so. Not much chance of dining on his cow pie there then, you think. Well, Marston’s appear to have cleverly found a solution to that little problem to both its and Tome Shepherd’s benefit - 20000 of a version of his award-winning pie (‘a limited edition’) are being sold in Marston’s pubs until the edition runs out. Brilliant.
It was for this reason a regular dining companion and myself set out for Hopwood (a pleasingly short distance from my home for once) to make ourselves comfortable in the Hopwood House, settle back and tuck into Shepherd’s remarkable creation. I had a pint of Inch’s recently introduced Riversider Herefordshire cider to get me started and very good it was too. Anticipation grew as we awaited the delivery of our pies and we were not to be disappointed.
The pie looked good from the outside and rather better in the inside. The information displayed on a card on the table described the pie and it seemed to be consistent with the dish that Shepherd had served upin the Great British Menu, “A triple layered pie made with hand pulled beef cheek and pulled shin, sweet and garlicky caramelised onions, separated by a thinly sliced distinctively savoury, seasoned roasted potato layer, all encased within a deliciously textured beef fat pastry”.
And indeed it was highly delicious - an inarguably fine pie rarely if ever matched by the numerous pub pies I have eaten in the past. The description above was accurate, the meat tender and unctious as slow cooked beef shin and cheek should be and the whole generously portioned. The accompanying vegetables were unremarkable but the mash was as good as many a pub mash, the roast carrots nicely textured with a nice bite to them and the greens fairly humdrum but good enough. There was a good gravy or ‘rich red wine sauce’ (whichever term you prefer) with it and it all went down very well with my glass of cider.
I was immediately trying to think of an excuse to come back again to have another dive into one of these cow pies, so enjoyable was it.
Though full, I chose cheesecake with cherries and cherry sauce. It was not distinguished in flavour but the texture was satisfactory and the macerated cherries were cheerful enough even though they were working hard to keep the flavour of cherry to themselves.
But in the end, t’was the pie that made it. Tom Shepherd really is clever. And the view of the canal and the generally happy and welcoming atmosphere.
Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛 (sans pie 🌛🌛)
25 April 2025.
