Beer Town isn't what it once was. There are still serried ranks of fermenters but the scale of Burton's former glory days is better measured by the absence of the past. Private railways that once split through streets into brewer's yards have been ripped away and replaced by access roads for sprawling car parks. A decaying leisure complex floods the area between the River Trent and the High Street where malthouses and breweries once crowded. Every superstore, every retail park, every shopping centre... everywhere there once was industry and service to supply and support it.

Tangible signs of Burton's past are comparatively few. And it seems the same could be said for IPA. The last time I went looking, with beer polymath Phil Lowry, we came up short. Familiarity, certainty and blind hope would guide me this time.

I made early doors at the Burton Bridge Inn. Damp dogs drying before the fires, weathered old men drank from pewter tankards whilst holding slightly-shouty conversations. And I get what I'm looking for; a bottle of the brewery's Empire Pale. Scant head suggests little condition but there's spiced, chewy marmalade and an almost-aggressive Burton snatch.

The rain still lashed down all along Bridge Street as I headed for the Brewery Tap of the National Brewery Centre. And here's my dead cert: I can't imagine them not having Worthington White Shield. Plenty of it on offer today; Sunday diners don't seem to be ale drinkers so it seemed to be me with the only cask pint. A few bedraggled parties from the museum tour enjoyed their splash-in-a-glass samples.

I'm still not sure why Eastenders was showing on the flat screen TV - surely that's why people go out on a Sunday? Truth be told, the Brewery Tap bar nowadays is more like a holding pen for diners before they shuffle off to the restaurant. There's plenty of wood and chrome but the place isn't exactly a destination in itself. Still, I was happy to skulk in a corner and read the IPA chapter of 'Amber, Gold & Black' IPA by Martyn Cornell. Drinking IPA in Burton whilst reading about IPA; priceless.

As for White Shield; earthy, fruity, rough-handed rather than gentle caressing... and again has that snatch to remind you, uncompromisingly, that you're drinking a beer brewed in Burton.

The wind blew me down Guild Street and off to the Cooper's Tavern. Which was quiet, their lunchtime crowd must have drifted off into the mizzle. No hoped-for Thornbridge Jaipur; the only IPA was from Newby Wyke and that spluttered a last gasp into the glass. Only one thing for it; I'd have to drink Bass instead.

Cards on the table: I don't care how the incremental changes have changed the beer over time, how it's all-too often a piss-poor beer in dodgy pubs, about the irony of how the world's first trademarked beer brand is owned by AB-Inbev and contract-brewed for them at Marston's whilst celebrated at a museum funded by Coors.

Good beer is where you find it: I find it in a Bass cask at the end of a corridor in the Cooper's.

The act of drinking beer is many things to many people at many times; social, raucous, convivial, introspective. For me, for an hour on Sunday it was contemplative. A half-hearted attempt at a crossword, farting about with my camera, thinking....

There's IPA to be had in Burton, for sure. It may not be what you're expecting. But that maybe because you sometimes need to challenge your assumptions about IPA. And about beer. And as to why it matters.

Today's Obviously Made Up Fact About IPA:

IPA is illegal in sixteen US states under “misuse of trade description” legislation. Such beers have to be sold instead as “hoppy pale ales originally brewed for, but not exclusively supplied to, the area of South Asia now known as the federal constitutional republic of India”.

>

Stepping off the train at Burton, there's a whiff of the subcontinent about the town. Sadly, it's not the sweet hoppy aroma of IPA-in-the-making but of curry. Which is a bugger for two reasons; it makes me hungry for lamb bhuna at eleven o'clock in the morning and it makes me thirsty for Jaipur. Fortunately, that latter is a commodity that Beer Town can offer up within minutes of arriving there - if you know where to look.

A day of not-Christmas-shopping with another thirsty toper, Chris McBride, showed that Burton may be a pencil-thin shadow of the brewing colossus it once was but good beer is where you find it. Starting at the Cooper's Tavern; it's been a brewer's house, brewery tap and bottle store in its time. It serves Bass straight from the cask. It often sells Jaipur and it did today. And as Alex Ferguson has never said; "Jaipur! Bloody hell!". And for some inexplicable reason, Chris and I were drawn to rocking the treadle of a Singer sewing machine now converted into a bar table...

Over at the Burton Bridge Inn there was a beer and food pairing that ought to make Mark Dredge weep; Damson Porter, bacon & black pudding sandwich. I'd say more about the place, but that pairing says it all.

And then there was The Brewery Tap. We came here to try one beer in particular - Carling Extra Cold. It's always special to drink a beer at the place where it's brewed and... er, let's try that one again. We went there to try one beer in particular - cask White Shield. It's always special to drink a beer at the place where it's brewed and White Shield was dazzlingly fruity-fresh.

Today's bottle: whilst we were there, we surreptitiously opened up a Bass 200. Brewed for their bicentenary celebrations in 1977, this was my early Christmas present from Chris. And for a capped beer over thirty years old, it was still chock full of condition. I even wrenched a tendon or two trying to get the bottle open. The taste? Just like sherried cola. C-o-l-a cola.

Today's gift: Michael Jackson on White Shield.

Today's picture: Spot the Bass bottle


Cheers to Stoph for a cracking day out and letting me share in that bottle of 200. >

This was a poignant ramble - a trip to Burton to include a visit to the Bass Museum before it was closed down at the end of June 2008.

The history of Burton-upon-Trent is the history of English brewing. Sine the late 1800's, when brewers cottoned onto the fact that the local water was particularly condusive to brewing, Burton has been riven with the industry. The canals and railways provided the arterial supply routes needed to move Burton beers out across the world. Although the town is no longer crammed with thirty-plus brewers as in its heyday, the behemoth brick warehouses of old still vie with steel clad silos full of largering torpor across the Burton skyline.



And it's the recent actions of the Charybdis-like MolsonCoors that brought me to Burton on a wet Saturday in June. They decided to close the Bass Museum - let's call it what it is, it's never really been a 'Coors Visitor Centre' - and I'm not going to pop another ulcer by banging on about that here.

I popped down to Burton early; it's only a thirty minute bus trip straight down the A38 from Derby. A wander around the town led inevitably to a quick half in the nearest 'Spoons, the Lord Burton. It felt dirty to be drinking a Burton Bridge beer in here (Festival Special) but it was well served, well tasty and well cheap.

With the skies turning the wrong shade of grey, I decided to head off to the museum for another beer and wait for Steve and his wife Chrissie who were driving up from Kent.

My first impressions of 'The Brewery Tap' were - who the fuck built a hotel bar on the side of a museum!? The last time I was here, on a cold winter afternoon cradling a nip of Bass Number One, it was a bar crammed full of Bass nick-nacks and a homely feel. Now, it's all clinical chrome and white walls. And the Brewery Tap logo everywhere, even etched into the windows.

It's a bar designed to pander to the corporate hospitality and wedding crowd, those who will neither look nor seek no further than the Coors Light spout. Mind you, the White Shield I tried was still good, the taste holding its own even from within an overly showy chalice glass.























My second impression? What's to stop me waltzing into the museum, unpaid? Well, nothing... has that been the case for some time or just since closure was on the cards? If the former, is there any wonder they were losing revenue? If the latter, then how else is that lack of care going to manifest itself today?

Steve and Chrissie were still en route so I braved the rain for the short dash down the road to the Burton Bridge tap, the Burton Bridge Inn (henceforth the BBI).

This is an intriguing pub; no front door, it's down the alley at the right hand side, and once it you're treated to split level rooms served by a central bar. Narrow pews and loose cushions define the decor in the front bar, with solid tables and chairs to be found in a stouter dining area to the rear. I enjoyed a pint of Burton Porter (and an even more enjoyable corned beef and beetroot sarnie).























Having received a call to say my friends had arrived at museum, I sauntered down there and suggested that we head straight back to the pub - many still close at 2.30pm on a Saturday and the BBI is no exception. They were more than happy at the suggestion and were soon tucking into a range of BB beers - and egg butties, which Chrissie ordered in her most sumptuous accent and made it sound like the sexiest lunch in the world ever.

With lunchtime imbibation complete, it was back off to the musuem. Steve and Chrissie had money-off vouchers; I got in free as a card-carrying CAMRA member... thinks to self: why let in for free those customers who (one assumes) would glady pay to see a brewery museum?

The first section does a passable job at explaining the brewing process in general. Some rather faded figures were propped up over hops or shovelling in the tun. A couple of the exhibits had an audio commentary but I didn't see any of the portable audio guides that used to be on offer (though, truth be told, only about half of the commentary ever seemed to work on them anyway). Various machines could be cranked up (for a few seconds). The mash tun in which the fabled Kings Ale began its life was here as well - albeit only about half of it.

Lots of information boards abound, most of which were genuinely interesting, but it all looked rather outdated. Towards the end of this section, it started to feel less like a coherent exhibition telling a story and more like a random selection of artefacts.

I mooched off to see the shire horses. Here was this museum's nugget of pride; polished brasses and competition rosettes displayed proudly. They horses were still hard at work - one had just returned to the stables to be readied for a wedding party - so hopefully they'll be resettled and continue to work for a living. And, with any luck, that resettlement will allow for re-naming them - I know they're brewery horses but how the hell you could seriously call them Reef, Carling and White Shield is beyond me...

Also outside were a motley collection of buses and delivery vans; let's not ponder too long on the merits of overpainting Bass trucks with the Coors logo. Again, it all felt a little random, no great effort made to explain what the vehicles were or to place them in context. I was getting to the stage, quite frankly, where I found every exhibit a little depressing. All that wasted opportunity - how about the heritage buses being used to take visitors on tours of the town, pointing out notable sites, giving the visitor a feel for what was the grand scale of brewing in Burton?

The next building was a bit of a hotch-potch, too. Remnants of Burton's other lost museum were crammed in for no apparent reason. Again, there were a few working machines (I'm a sucker for firing up well-lubricated pistons). Amongst the random Bass breweriana and rather pallid dioramas, there were a couple of interesting exhibits. The 'pubs through the ages' was good, giving the visitor a feel for how they have always functioned as a social hub as well as being drinking dens. Liked the idea of different pub games in each one. And Steve seemed to be right at home...

Again, though, exhibits such as this made me think how the concept had never really been exploited fully. Why have stuffed dummies behind the bar when you could have had an actor to - er- interact with the visitors? I know it all costs - but what if they'd had guided tours, part of which involved interaction with character actors, charged at a slight premium over the normal entry fee?

The other exhibit which had always attracted me was the model of Burton in 1921 with an N-gauge railway. This gave a real feel for that industrial scale of brewing that I mentioned earlier - to see the town riven with railways, the brewhouses and warehouses crammed together. Again, it's another squandered opportinity as not all the locos seemed to be working (as was ever the case from my previuous trips here). I'd have loved to see the 1921 map projected onto a wall; in fact I would have liked to have seen maps from throughout the town's history projected and overlaid to give visitors an idea of how the brewing industry affected the geography of the town through the ages. But that's the old cartography student in me...

Don't get me wrong. There were still some good exhibits here and a 'beer novice' could visit and at least learn about the rudiments of brewing, the story of beer in Burton and the impact of Bass upon the brewing world. But in many ways it's a museum that's been past its best for some time. It's a curate's egg of a place (pun fully intended); not really a brewing museum, instead a museum to celebrate (commemorate?) a once-proud brewing brand that Coors don't own and don't brew. With the owners several steps removed from true pride and association with Bass, was it any wonder that the museum floundered?

After all that, we needed a beer. It was only a few minutes down the road to the Coopers Tavern - perhaps one of the most interesting pubs I know. No bar, no pumps, beer is served straight from the barrels on a stillage in the corner of the back room. We enjoyed a few good beers here, it's a place where I could happliy spend an afternoon with half-a-dozen ales and a decent crossword. And a carry-out for when I enjoy a curry a few doors down at Balti Towers. We enjoyed some superb beers in a pub where the atmosphere wasn't painted on the walls...

It was my idea to visit the Old Cottage next - after all, they brew their own beer and have been know to serve interesting guest ales. Sadly, I'd left my navigational skills in the pocket of my other coat, and so we circled the Town Hall several times before I found the right road. I wished we'd stayed at the Coopers, though - the whole pub smelt vaguely of loo cleaner and the Old Cottage beers were a tad on the bland side.

There can be no doubt that this country deserves a National Museum of Brewing and it ought to be in Burton - it has the history and it has good transport links to the rest of the country. Incorporation of the Bass collection into a new museum is paramount, but to survive it would need a wider remit. It shouldn't be a repository of redundant brewery ephemera, it needs to tell the story of brewing and tell it well. An on-site brewer with brewery tours is a must - there's surely no better way to appreciate the process than to see it, smell it, feel it, hear it in action.























Living up the road in Derby, I'm all too aware of the Bass legacy. Michael Thomas Bass, grandson of the brewery's founder, was a generous benefactor to our city, including the provision of the 'Free Library'in the Wardwick (still used as a library today) and a recreation ground (one of the rare patches of green left in the city centre). It's about time we honoured that legacy and campaigned for the Bass collection to be a significant contributor to a national museum - one that doesn't just look back into gilded mirrors and reflect on the industry's history but actively involve us all in the joys of brewing. >

With a sunny Saturday all to myself, thoughts turned to beer hunting in places old and new. I was going to buy myself a Derbyshire Wayfarer train and bus ticket to get some Peak District pubs as well as a visit to Sheffield's finest but then had a bolder idea - rather than just two counties, could I manage a beer tour of half a dozen of them in a day?





I reckoned that with an early start, punctual trains and a speedy approach to Reluctant Scooping I could knock off six counties around the East Midlands; catching the express bus from Derby to Nottingham and then using an East Midlands Day Ranger to pick up an anti-clockwise chain of trains to take in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Rutland and Leicestershire before heading home to Derby.

So, eight-thirty saw me arrive under a white sky into Nottingham for a full English at the best cafe in the country, Bunters on Old Parliament Street. With stomach suitably lined, it was time to find a pub that opened at 9am and the Roebuck duly obliged.

It's one of the more pleasant Wetherspoon's I've visited; a tangle of rooms where a sizable building has been knocked through and up. In attempt to make this a LocAle day as well, I bought a half of Nottingham Legend and headed upstairs to catch some sun outside in the smoking garden. It's a rather sweet and creamy beer for this time of the morning, taking time for an old-school malt wash to develop.

Leaving the city of my birth behind at ten-ish, it was a half-hour trip across the splendid Vale of Belvoir to a town I've been through but never stopped off at - Grantham in Lincolnshire.

Following a path that carved through the terraced houses to the town centre and then finding back streets crammed with interesting architecture I made my way to the Blue Pig. This is a 16th century building that was turned into a pub in the 1800's and ticks all the boxes; slate floors, wooden settles, pewter mugs and china plates hang around the impressive mirror-backed bar. A multiplicity of rooms on different levels make the Blue Pig a subtle hybrid of back street boozer and tourist's wet dream.

Oldershaw of Grantham provide a house beer for the Blue Pig but, sadly, not today. I reluctantly settled for Marquis Bitter from Brewsters and wasn't disappointed; an earthy bitter that doesn't stick in your clack like Legend can.

Couldn't spend enough time here (a feeling repeated through today). Though I'd gladly pass on the Landlord and wouldn't wash my arse with Greede Kerching IPA, there were a couple of other good looking beers on offer here (Lord Marples from Thornbridge and a Milestone beer).

So, a swift yomp back up to the station for the twelve o'clock express to Peterborough. That was running late, so I took the gamble on catching the next slow train. At least that wasn't packed to the gills with giddy tourists; there were plenty of seats and someone had left a stack of newspapers behind to keep me entertained. And that express only overtook us about five minutes away from the city.

If it's 1230, it must be Cambridgeshire. First stop was to be the Oakham's Brewery Tap, under threat of closure due to redevelopment in the Westgate area of the city. And from the opposite side of the dual carriageway, it looked very closed indeed. With time here short, I decided to cut my losses and hotfoot it straight down to the river and visit Charters Bar.

This is a place I've heard great things said about it, but my previous trips to Peterborough have been only to the beer festival and never the pubs. Boy, was I glad I came here! A converted continental barge, the Leendert-R had that 'North European' feel to it with one long wooden bar, subdued lighting and a motley collections of plush stools and wonky tables. There was a great selection of Oakham beers amongst the twelve on offer (of which I thoroughly unreluctantly tried White Dwarf and Inferno), Thai food available from the restaurant on the top deck ; no bands playing this lunchtime but the easy-going background music (R&B, Levellers, Sinatra) was playing to plenty of punters enjoying a cracking pint or three whilst reading the papers.

Outside was a real bonus - a tent hosting the bar's beer festival! The vicious wind tested the guy ropes and slammed gravel against the awnings. Inside were some unusual beers for this neck of the woods, including a superb Okells Eastern Spice that put a warm ticklish heat into the back of your throat and gums. Deep spices rose to itch in the way the phlegm after a cough scratches its way round your mouth.

This was the place I could have stopped for the rest of the day. With the time now past two in the afternoon, I'd not left myself long enough to try the door of the Brewery Tap - which, it turns out, was still open- as I'd got to catch my next train for the short hop to Oakham.

My target here in Rutland was the Grainstore brewery tap next door to the railway station. I know it's next door, but I fought against innate geography and set off down the high street instead. I fancied some fish 'n chips but needed the loo first - and failing to find one, ended up trogging back to the station to find the pub instead. It's an impressive building from the outside and smart inside with exposed brickwork, breweriania, fairy lights and some of the best 'clean wood' tables and chairs I've seen in a pub (if only I could have smuggled a chair back home with me...). The CAMRA award certificates going back to 1998 either suggest pride in their heritage or a tendency to trade in on past glories, though.

As for the beer, the Ten Fifty was excellent (chewy malts, vanilla edge, fruity nose) but two criticims, one flippant and one serious. I'm drinking a brewer's beer in their brewery tap. Why not serve it in a glass with the beer/brewery logo on? And the all-too-serious criticism; £2.90 is way too much for a 5% beer brewed in the room next door.

At these prices, I might as well be drinking in the city, so I skipped back over to the station and moved down the line to Leicester.

Four-ish by the time I arrived, and almost impossible for me to not partake in a mini-crawl. First stop, a short stagger from the station, was Out Of The Vaults, excellent as always. A superb choice of a dozen beers here and a no-brainer for me as a Reluctant Scooper - Beowulf Finns Hall Porter is a regular beer here and I'm always more than happy to enjoy a pint whilst sitting in the window, letting the Leicester sun shine on a righteous scooper...

More pubs to do, though; driven onwards by the awful metal covers music playing here, it was only a few minutes round the corner to the Swan and Rushes. Really quiet in here - me and three others including the staff. A continental bottle from their enviable range is always tempting, but if I started down that route it would inevitably end in Cantillon and stomachache.
So, a mild it was to be, Scattor Rock Rock Steady Mild to be precise. And it was... stunning. Surprisingly fruity with a lactic chocolate smack.

The Criterion was much busier with the live music on in the lounge. I don't know if the Crit were in the midst of one of their regional mini-fests as there was a fair range of West Country beers hre (including Teign Valley, Sharps and Coastal). For some reason, I ignored them all and went for a brewer local-ish to me, Spire, and their Twist 'n Stout. Which was damn fine, superbly smooth with just enough dry coffee notes.

Having avoided any local beer whilst in Leicester, it was time to find an Everards pub. I'd usually end up in the Globe but I fancied a change. OK, I couldn't actually find it; despite being a frequent Leicester imbiber, my beer-fuelled prat-nav was starting to run flat.

Fortunately, I'd just past the Rutland & Derby, another Everards establishment so I thought I'd give it a whirl. It's one of those strange beasts, a smart bar with real ale. It actually felt like the kind of small bar attached to a restaurant, high chrome stools and low leather chairs. Not a place to relax with a pint and the paper- well, certainly not at 7pm on a Saturday night. A glass of Sunchaser was polished off - served in a smart chalice glass with the Sunchaser logo on. And the beer was surprisingly refreshing - perhaps because my palate was starting to feel slightly jaded by now.

Plenty of time before the next train, so I took a gentle amble back to the station with five counties down and just the homeward bound leg left. And then... as I got into the station I noticed a Derby-bound departure that didn't exist on my timetable so I ran - well, wobbled quickly - to give myself a half-hour advantage. As the train pulled into Derby, a wicked thought came to my head that I might be able to fit in a bonus county...

Just about to pull out the station was a Birmingham-bound train, first stop Burton-on-Trent! My all-day ticket was valid into Staffordshire so I grabbed the chance. Ten minutes later, I was in the spiritual home of English brewing and ready to have a drink in my sixth county that day.

But I was starting to tire now.... perhaps it was because I'd made it here and knew that I had time for a long, last pint at Derby in about an hour's time. But an hour's a long time when you're knackered, even longer when it's a busy Saturday night in Burton. So, time for a 'splash and dash'. Arrived into Burton, 20008. Next train to Derby, 2020. Walked to Devonshire Arms, arrived 2012. Bought half a Burton Bridge Golden Delicious at 2014. Drank it by 2015. Back onto the station platform at 2019 just as the train pulled in. Having budgeted on spending an hour in each county, I'd been in Staffordshire for twelve minutes!

Back on the train, I reflected on that very swift half - certainly some sweet crunch and slight bitterness. I'd have liked to have stayed in Burton longer but I needed three things; chips, White Feather and sleep in precisely that order. The chips did what chips should - warm you through and stuff you up. And, the seventh county delivered my twelfth beer in my tenth pub of the day - and it's the finest beer county providing easily the best beer in the best brewpub I've ever been to. Brunswick White Feather is a beer that I have come to adore - soft malts, grassy notes, flowery hops.... it's the pint that slakes my thirst after a long day at work, rewards my return to the city after a day walking in the Peaks, consoles me after hacking round town doing the shopping, oils the catch-up conversation with friends seldom seen nowadays. .. no matter where I've been and what I've been up to, there's always the time and passion for a pint of Feather.

Dragging my weary bones back to the bus, I reflected on a long, long beery day. It had been fantastic to put the miles in - about 150 - and be rewarded with decent beers, great pubs and plenty of places that I'm eager to return to and explore more. I'll certainly be going back to Grantham and Peterborough again, a mosey around the other pubs in the former and a whizz around the cathedral in the latter is definitely on the cards.

I can heartily recommend this kind of ramble - check out the deals in your area here and then make sure that engineering works aren't going to scupper a vital leg of the trip. >

The Alex in Derby has occasional 'Meet The Brewer' nights, where a local brewer gives an informal talk about the beers he brews whilst the regulars try a sample.

This week, Bruce Wilkinson (top left of the picture) of Burton Bridge popped by to tell us about some of his beers.

Fours beers were on offer: Bridge Bitter, Golden Delicious, Xthirsty8 and Top Dog Stout. Bruce explained which malts and hops were used for each beer and described how they contribute to the flavour and aroma.

Half-pint samples were freely available for each beer, as the picture shows!

A really interesting evening, always good to hear about how beers come into being and the challenges that modern craft brewers face.

What's more, it was all free! Major congratulations to the landlord, Johnathan Hales, for laying on this event. Looking forward to many more!! >