Glutinous snot, backache and generally-not-fancying-a-beer have conspired against a good run of beery Advent entries this year. Never mind, eh.

Tonight's was a belter, though. Beowulf are one of those brewers that knock out dependable beers until they go dark - then they brew beers that are simply sublime.

Finn's Hall Porter and Dragon Smoke Stout are two of the finest dark cask beers in England. Strong Mild may be one of the best bottled English beers I've tried this year. Massive body, vineous notes, hedgerow fruit, a boozy burn... 7.4% of burning plummy goodness. Fantastic.

Tonight's gift: the second half of Marillion's finest nerdy folklore-rock moment

Tonight's picture: I've had gluey crap in most of these body parts this week. It ruins the life of a beer drinker. Well, it ruins you if you actually want to taste and appreciate beer:

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Feeling slightly more chipper today.

A few beers around Derby helped; highlights included Whim Black Christmas in the Flowerpot, Beowulf Finn's Hall Porter in the Old Silk Mill and Railway Porter in the Brunswick.

The pubs had highlights, too: coal fires, wood fires, huge cleavage, conversations about kitchen knives, frosty terraces, the smell of shit, the smell of fresh paint, the smell of teenage desperation.

And tonight I've been catching up on those bottles; Stuart Howe's Citric Tripel (hugely fresh, oily, herbal); Anchor Humming Ale (grapefruit-riven joy) and Sierra Nevada Tumbler (not as robust as I hoped for).

Tonight's gift: one of many reasons why AP McCoy deserved to win Sports Personality of the Year

Tonight's picture: some tiles. They may be in the Barton's Arms, Aston.

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In a previous job, I had to visit our offices in Stoke. With the CAMRA beer festival venue close by, I made sure that I scheduled a trip to the Potteries at just the right time. Nowadays my Friday outings are few and far between, so this year I took a Saturday trip to Stoke instead.

With an early-ish arrival into town, I headed for the nearest Spoons. I remember The Wheatsheaf when it was fairly dingy music venue in the eighties; sticky floors, loads of pillars to stagger into and all the ambiance of an underground car park during a power failure. Now it's a light and airy pub with some great guest beers. I scooped the Riverhead Liquorice Stout simply because it sounded interesting - and what an awesome flavour it had. Bags of dusty brown liqourice with unsurprising coffee and mild chocolate hints.

It's only a two minute walk from the Spoons to the festival venue (King's Hall) so I trogged off and joined the queue. Thankfully not much of a queue, just a few hardy topers braving the chilly breeze. Full comedy marks go to the guy behind me who attempted to whistle the theme tune to 'The Littlest Hobo' but ended up on the theme tune from 'The Monkees'.

With doors open, I grabbed a glass and flew upstairs to secure a seat by the foreign bar. But there were no seats set out - AARRGH! So, back downstairs to grab a piece of the stage before any band arrived. The King's Hall is an impressive space, a stage set at one end with a balcony at the other and a superb ornate ceiling. With the brass band not due on for a while, at least the stage edge gave me somewhere to lean against.

The issue with beer festivals on their last day is that you've really got no idea what's going to be available, even if beers have been held back for that day. That doesn't bother me too much anymore; random beers have an attraction and if the choice was uninspiring I'd just hop back on the train and carry on drinking in Derby. Thankfully I could start with one of my favourite beers - so with a half of Thornbridge Kipling secured, I went for a wander around the bars to see what was left.

Surprisingly, there were quite a few of my preferred beers still knocking around. Better still, the festival seemed to gain a second after about an hour when some weighty beers suddenly seemed to become available. Every beer was in good nick and I was able to Reluctantly Scoop six new beers;

- Beowulf Killer Stout; a parched-dry stout with obvious alcohol
- Crouch Vale Wild Hop; slightly sweet, fairly crisp
- Lymestone Stone The Crows; strong autumnal ale with roasty wheat in there?
- Oakleaf I Can't Believe It's Not Bitter; citrus zest and a sweet vein
- Pictish Z Rod; a well-balanced pale ale
- Titanic Maple Smith; Captain Smith with added maple syrup; malty, sweety, not cloying

As well as the tried and trusted Thornbridge, I was happy to sink a half of Falstff Wilko, one of my favourite barley wines. It's only supposed to be brewed during the Rugby World Cup or Six Nations, so I don't know if this has been knocking around a while or Falstaff have decided to brew it for the winter. Either way, I'm glad to get another taster of it - aggressive alcohol cuts across the malt from start to finish.

I didn't find the food outlet here - it was probably lurking down one of the hospital-like corridors. Fortunately I bought a pork pie with me (a fairly crumbly Melton job from Sainsburys). Yummier were the almond croissants (from Sainsburys as well), I used to have these every time I visited Stoke when I used to work for a nearby college.

As the Audley Brass Band took to the stage, I took off to the cider bar. Plenty still left here - and I don't know if this is just a Midlands thing but the ciders and perrys all seemed to be great value in comparison to the price of strong beers. I was happy to try the Ross on Wye whisky casked dry cider again and it didn't disappoint.

To round out the festival, I took a trip upstairs to check out the foreign bar. Nothing really grabbed my fancy, though I was tempted by the Hopsinjoor that I tried back in July at Derby's fest. Sadly they'd sold out of Gouden Carolus Cuvee van der Kaiser, a bottle of which I usually buy here and drink at Christmas.

A surprisingly good festival, this; I knew the beer quality would be good but didn't honestly expect such a range of great beers to still be available on the festival's third day. By two o'clock it was busy but not cramped and still offered quick service at the bar. With my pick of the beers polished off, I had enough time left to pop down the road to Titanic Brewery's new pub, the White Star, for a decent pint of Captain Smith's alongside a bacon & cheese stuffed oatcake.

It's been enjoyable to find a festival in fine fettle on a Saturday and a couple of good pubs within sixty seconds of each other. I'm overdue a trip around the six towns; I certainly won't leave it a year before I visit Stoke again.
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When two of my favourite pubs in Leicester got together to host a joint beer festival, it would have be rude not to give it a bash. Lured by madly strong Oakham ales and some dark Beowulf lovelies, I braved the chill wind to meet up with old muckers John and Brian at Vin IV (formerly Out Of The Vaults) and the Swan & Rushes.


It was cold in Leicester. No hail, no snow, just marrow-freezing dullness. Forgetting that the Alehouse opened at 11am - and they had a festival on too - left me tramping the shopping centres for an hour. A haircut filled the time, conducted by a barber who was the Daily Mail incarnate. I'd have pointed out the flaws in his anti-immigration policies but he did have a particularly sharp pair of scissors in the vicinity of my jugular.

Twelve noon brought me to the Swan just as the doors were opening. Too early for beers from the stillage, I instead decided to treat myself to a bottle of Anchor Our Special Ale, their Christmas ale. Licks of ginger, hints of pine, deep caramels... it's a satisfying beer for this time of year.

Tracking down John and Brian, it transpired they were en route to Vin IV, having called by the Swan when it was closed earlier and kept moving. Time for a few dark beers and a bit of snap, then. Wickwar Station Porter and Elgood's North Brink Porter were dispatched in quick succession. The former was a little on the bland side - perhaps due more to the chillly stillage outside as I've had this beer before in finer form. The Elgoods on handpump inside was superb; deep, deep ruby bodied with rounded rich berry fruits in the flavour. Dry chocolate and wet espresso filled out the profile of an accomplished beer. A proper cheese and onion roll (both ingredients thick cut) and a pork pie (possibly from Lanes, one of those flat, pliable ones) made for a decent lunch.

And then there was Oakham. Sadly their latest IPA, X-Terminator, wasn't ready ("it looks a little lumpy" said Grant Cook (at least, I think it was licensee Grant, I really ought to find out these things). My next trip to the stillage was far more fruitful, though. Not only did I get to meet blogger Pan-C from ale-affinity - without whom I wouldn't have known about the fest - but I was able to try what for me was the real draw of the day. Warthog was a collaborative brew between Green Jack and Oakham for last year's Peterborough CAMRA festival. It was 13.5% then.... so there's every chance that it could be knocking on for an extra percent-ish by now. Sticky tropical fruits to the nose, a high register alcohol note carried away on a hop tip. A slight cool haze to the copper body. It was thick but not viscous, no oily residue but instead a lovely light feel - still coated your teeth but as a veneer sheen rather than a gluey gloop.

Then, hops...... the lightest, fruitiest, smackingly-alpha hops that had no right to be present in a beer of this style and age. Frankly, I couldn't understand where the hops kept coming from. I had to keep sipping. And still the hops came, marching regimentally out the glass and into your gob as if they'd been in reserve too long and were desperate to pillage across your palate. I know many people who'd detach vital appendages if it allowed them to taste beers like this. If this uber-hopped barrel-aged barley wine were from San Bindeebondoo in the good ol' US west coast, certain beer review sites would be hailing it as a world-beating beer. Let me tell you - it *was* a world-beating beer, which goes to show that English brewers ought to be laying down beers in this style and bottling it to show that we're not as boring as our pilgrim brethren may make us out to be.

Suitably fortified, I dragged my hop haze off to the Out Of The Vaults. Or Vin IV as it's now known (again). John and Brian had just arrived after a trip to the Criterion and we soon got stuck into the beers on offer. They seemed to enjoy their choices from Fernandes, Hoggleys and Riverhead. My Kelham Island Winterlude was tasty enough, but the Beowulf Grendall's Grog being too heavy on the thick malts for me. Bees Ginger Beer was disappointingly underpowered for my palate - I'm keener on the boldness of Marble Ginger.

The Beowulf Christmas Cake 2008 was easily the better beer in this part of the festival for me. Decent rich fruits, a chewy malty base blunted by keen hops. By now, we'd given in to the lure of landlord Paul's homemade chili, mopped up with hunks of bread. I'd usually opt for a crisp pale beer to wash down a chili, but the Beowulf provided a surprisingly effective counterpoint with its fruitiness soaking up the spices.

Too soon, we needed to amble down New Walk for the train back to Derby. No prizes for guessing that the Warthog was my beer of the day. And the chili was one of the best trays of pub grub I've had this year. If only I'd been able to try them together.....

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Wake up. Catch train. Go to beer festival. Drink beer. Drink cider. Eat pork pie. Catch train. Drink beer in Brunswick. Go to bed. To be honest, I'm getting bored of writing up fest trips. Would a visit to Tamworth be any different? Would there be something more imbibable than average British bitters? Would these gentlemen make it back to the rest home before curfew? Read on, dear toper.

To be honest, the day didn't get off to a great start. The new rail fares are anything but fair; the 20-minute Derby-Tamworth trip cost me more than the peak time fare to Brum used to only a few weeks ago. But this wasn't for any old festival; this was a Tamworth festival. New breweries. Church End specials. And the finest trio of food shops that I know of; Truckles for cheese, Claridge and Son for pork pies, Wood and Son for fish. Cycling John, Comrade Brian and I stocked up on cheese and porkies - we thought we'd not bother with DIY sushi - and set off in the rain for the Assembly Rooms.

Steady rain resulted in a wobbly line of wet tickers queuing for fest entry, which didn't bode well for the aroma later on. The eau de odour of certain tickers reaching reheat often puts me in mind of an incontinent Labrador. With Tamworth having a somewhat compact layout, as the rest of the line spawned left into the main room I bolted right to secure one of the few tables in the small but perfectly formed bar/dining area.


Pretty soon, we had a table full of pork pies (from Morris), cheeses (including the sublime Black Bomber from the Snowdonia Cheese Company) and Comrade Brian's home grown toms. The food was so enjoyable, it slowed down the purchase of beer. Amends were made with two rapid halves; Church End's Mocca Chocca Focca (fairly underwheling, some itchy chocolate faded into a thinning malt by the finish) and Beowulf Coffee Hazelnut Porter (needed a few minutes to warm when it revealed a superb creamy nuttiness).


I'm still experimenting with pork pie production and am having jelly problems. The stuff in the first pie was good - you could put a thumbprint into it and watch it spring back. My jelly is not so much runny as theoretical. Gives me the opportunity to stuff my face full of other people's pies; er, I mean conduct in-depth market research. All this pie malarkey was distracting me from the beer. The other chaps had sampled some damn fine looking light beers like Brown Cow IPA, but I decided to stay with the dark side. A Reluctant Scoop for me; though you can't come to this fest and not scoop a new brewery. Outstanding have been up and running for about six months and I'd yet to try anything from these Bury-based brewers.

I gave their stout a crack and, by gum, it was good. Fairly hoppy, deep malts balancing the flavour out, enough body to carry bold flavours into a satisfying mouthfeel. So good, in fact, that I decided to try their other beers on offer. Their Ginger beer had a fantastically agressive aroma, thinning a little on first taste but developing a slow spice burn as the beer warmed. There was an efficient cask cooling system here, perhaps a little too efficient as some flavours were chilled out on the pour and needed time to come up to temp and fully develop.

As we tucked into a majestic hand-raised pork pie, I went to complete the set of Outstanding beers with their Standing Out. Hazy gold with a thick citric lick, there was plenty of smacking hop oil squeezing out through the keen malts to deliver a real lipsmaker. Clearly the best trio of beers from a brewer new to me since those I had from Hopshackle. With the cheese demolished, pork pies reduced to crumbs and the toms all gone, it was time to shift through the gears and stretch those drinking trousers.

That last Outstanding beer had given me an IPA lust; Comrade Brian had been struggling to find light beers that were to his liking but he was able to point me towards the Woodlands Super IPA which certainly upped the bar with its punchy hop nose and fat wet fruity flavour. I sampled a couple of the chaps' beers as well; Great Heck Golden Fleece had a rather gluey feel with dusty hops and Brampton Aspire had an odd fruit flavour that no-one could put a name to. Back to the dark beers, then, with some heavyweights to round out the day.

Having loved their porter earlier on, I had high hopes for Beowulf's Strong Mild. At 7.4% I didn't expect it to be exactly mild. And so it goes. The faintest petrol spiral on the witch-tit flat, black to brown body. Christmas cake forced through an oil sump for an aroma. Fruits in the flavour not so much developing as rupturing under the concentration of alcohol steeped within. As it warms, a higher register aroma kicks in that Cycling John noted as that of cycle puncture fix solution. This was a massive, MASSIVE mild, it would take Sarah Hughes' Dark Ruby down the alley and paste it senseless.

As the picture above shows, Dave Unpronounceable had braved the nose-bleedingly giddy trek from Sheffield to serve beer darn sarf and gave his punters a warm Yorkshire welcome. My next beer had to be Bass. I mean Museum Brewery. Sorry, White Shield. Sod it, let's call it what it is - proper Bass beers, brewed by a proper brewer, albeit not for much longer, it seems. But what a choice to make; Bass Number 1 or P2 Imperial Stout? The complex barley wine or the intensely layered darker beer. Only one thing to do - buy both and mix them. Texting Mes to get his patented formula, perfected at Rail Ale earlier this year, a few reverential sips were taken from each glass before creating some kind of monster. I could play a round of beer bullshit bingo and take you through an un-necessarily overlong description of the effect, but John said it all after one long slurp; "My goodness!!". I then inflicted Brewdog Tokyo onto my rapidly-fading tastebuds. I'm convinced I was drinking alcoholic soy sauce. A Japanese chain smoker had expectorated into my glass. Did I love the sticky tar-laden smoke-fest? Do bears practice Catholicism?

With no way of improving on these last beers, it was time to Reluctantly leave the fest. And, er, go to the pub. The Globe was an impressive looking building with lots of 1980s brasswork and crass carpets. And Worthington cask. And something that must have been palatable, as I definitely had half a something from a handpump. But, in my post-Tokyo state, anonymous brown bittery stuff was literally pale by comparison.

So why did we stop in the Albert for a drink as well? I've always had nothing but below-average beer in here, it's never going to have a beer the equal of anything at the festival. But, every year, like a dog returning to vomit, we stop for a drink here. At least it allowed me to a) go for a huge crap, b) eat the chicken sarnie I bought earlier and c) water the plastic hedge with whatever fudge-like bland crap it was that Comrade Brian bought me.

And what's with plastic hedges? Are they wash wipe? I ruddy well hope so, the amount of crap beer that must get poured on them. Is it modular? Do you slot in seasonal varieties - holly for winter, hawthorn to prevent gatecrashers? Or is it part of a gigantic oversized Playmobil set? Is there some eight foot tall freak queuing for the BBQ in the rear beer garden with a crash helmet hairdo, poor fashion sense and no genitals?

Off to the train, then, and some light relief. The upside of the pricey 'peaktime' tickets was that the Cross Country service wasn't stuffed to the gunnels with shrieking PAs and unemployable students. Comrade Brian treated us to a grand precis of left wing political theory (I think) and Cycling John nodded in all the right places. Though I preferred Brian's excellent Tommy Cooper impersonation. At least, I think it was the Coopermeister - I had nodded off five minutes before.

Back into Derby in good time, then, for our Survivors Club pint in the Brunswick. A White Feather is always welcome, even at the end of the beeriest day. Mind you, I was so tired by this point that my photos turned black and white. But it had been a cracking day - top nosh, great range of beer, high quality, excellent Reluctant Scoops and some enjoyable old faves. A couple of dire pubs, mind you, but overall it was a day that reminded me that some CAMRA fests are worth drinking at and are fun to write about after all. >