When it's at the Coach and Horses, Dronfield, Derbyshire.

When the pub turns itself inside out, nearly all the tables and chairs ending up outside.

When it then buckets down with rain but everyone's still smiling under canvass.

When the music isn't a dodgy tribute band but some of the freshest and finest acts from the UK blues scene.

When the food isn't a burnt burger but a Southern-states BBQ smorgasbord of wings 'n ribs 'n jambalaya.

When the beers aren't random blends with daft names but some of the most inventive casks from the UK's most progressive breweries - Thornbridge, Brewdog, Fyne Ales, Williams, Dark Star, Marble, Hawkshead, Roosters.

When locals and tickers and Tweeters and brewers sit round tables and have a riotous time.

Last weekend was more than a beer festival. It was living, breathing proof that good beer is enhanced dramatically by good people in a good location having a good time.

Huge thanks to Cat and the team at the Coach for making the weekend a highlight of my beery summer so far. And props to Darth Kiwi - I mean Kelly Ryan - for his unstinting energy and enthusiasm. >

Last Friday I ventured up to Sheffield with Mrs Reluctant to see Spandau Ballet. So true, funny how it seems...

On the way, we needed to find a spot for lunch and while away a few hours before the concert started. Somewhere with good food, great beer and an easy-going vibe. The Coach & Horses in Dronfield proved to be the ideal choice - as always.

Just inside Derbyshire but only six miles out of Sheffield city centre, the C&H fulfils many roles - real ale haunt, brewery showcase (for Thornbridge), foodie pub and thriving local. Its success is built upon insightful investment by Thornbridge Brewery and imaginative management by Cat Mueller. The head chef, Mark Taylor, can often be found at the bar - for Thornbridge beer to use in his appetising modern British dishes. The bar staff are sparky and well beer-educated. You may even end up being served by one of the Thornbridge brewers; the brewery manager Kelly Ryan is Cat's partner and not averse to pouring the odd pint for, ahem, quality control purposes.

Given that I live thirty miles away, I end up here often enough - via two trains straight after work, or taking the bus here after a refreshing afternoon around the Sheffield pub circuit. Or persuading my wife to drive us up here for a lazy weekend lunch. With a pint of Jaipur in hand, I'd think to myself... 'I really ought to write about this pub. Maybe even resurrect my late lamented Pubs To Love series'. Then I'd have another four pints and forget all about it.

But this time I've remembered to write something, spurred by a unique clutch of awards. The Coach won Sheffield CAMRA's District Pub of the Year award back in August; Thornbridge Jaipur won Champion Beer of the 2009 Sheffield CAMRA festival at the beginning of October. Last week, at the Brewing Business Awards run by the Society of Independent Brewers, Thornbridge won Best Support for On Trade Customer - recognition of how it turned the Coach around from a failing pub to a thriving concern. So I got a warm fuzzy feeling to be drinking an award-winning beer in an award-winning pub. Then again, I often get a warm fuzzy feeling when I drink Jaipur....

I'm proud to tell people that I'm a Coach customer - with a pub this good on my doorstep (almost), it would be rude of me not to drink there as often as I can manage. >

"Summer's gone / days spent with the grass and sun
But I don't mind / to pretend I do seems really dumb"

Autumn is almost upon us. Summer was that fleeting afternoon of insipid heat, followed by a few days of uncomfortable warmth, bookended by several weeks of blustery fluster that brought the world and their ankle-biters out to every pub garden. I'm never that sad to see summer move on, but it does have one thing going for it - drinking hoppy stuff in the sun.

Because summer beer to me means hops - oily fruit tickling the parched throat. So the summer beers that I look back on with a wry smile, in no particular order, are;

Ostravar Pils
From the bottle, in my conservatory. With lawns mowed, edges clipped, borders turned, bushes trimmed and slugs deaded. There are few feelings finer than the first lawnmower beer, one that's been whipped out the freezer and barely wets the edges as you bolt it down. Then let out a hugely satisfying belch to let the neighbours know that your gardening day is truly done.

Pictish Brewers Gold
In the beer garden of the Kelham Island Tavern, Sheffield. A suntrap melange of palms and ferns and splashes of shrubbery colour, no more than a well-hefted stone's throw from decayed factories and flash flats. Because every sip of it tastes like victory; balance over bludgeon, assured quality over reckless ambition. Because twenty minutes spent by a yucca with a Red Leicester cob, a crossword and a damn fine pint makes the rest of the day's dreary detail recede.

Marble Dobber
No sparkler, by the pint, sat with mates, by the bins out the back of the Marble Arch, Manchester. For the sheer joy of necking one of England's finest cask IPAs at its home ground, with a bunch of beery friends who loved it too. For the joy of watching people try it for the first time, and realise how I must have looked thirty seconds earlier.

Thornbridge/Epic Halcyon
At the Coach & Horses, Dronfield, Derbyshire. Outside, it was packed. Clear sky, sharp sun, the weather that leads a blondie like me to bleach and burn. So my retreat was beaten back into a calmer bar with an accommodating leather chair. Where I was sustained by a barbecued fish on a stick along with lashings of lip-twisting IPA. Where the comfort of great beer, great food and great music became almost tangible.

Thornbridge Jaipur
On this occasion, in the Bear Inn, Alderwasley, Derbyshire. As there are few finer moments across my summers than a back-knackering walk uphill, on a clear-blue-sky day, and happening across a pub selling one of my standout beers. As taut muscles relaxed and my palate welcomed back favourite flavours, I became the very definition of contentment. Albeit with five more miles to walk.

You know what? Summer sounds alright after all. But.... I'm ready for knocking the snow off my boots, glowing inglenooks, barley wines that warm the cockles of your thermals, finding that imperial stout you stashed away two years ago in the back of the garage.

We had joy. We had fun. Drank IPAs in the sun.
But the weather weren't what it oughta. And I'm gagging for a porter. >

Whilst I've been away most weekends with my head stuck too close to a seven-litre, 570 bhp GT engine, I still found the time to sink a few beers as well. Here's a random selection of the fun beer times I had.

Sheffield shenanigans; Dave Unpronouncable's birthday beers at the Harlequin, single-hopped Alehouse stunners at the Fat Cat, Thornbridge CocoaDance in the KIT and random bottles at the Coach - all enhanced massively by the company (step forward Neil McGowan, Phil Lowry, Angelo Scarnera, Jan and Charlotte, The Brew Company's Pete Roberts, Dave Corby and the Thornbridge brewers).

Drinking with Kiwis, part 1; Epic brewing's Luke Nicholas was over from New Zealand for the launch of Epic Pale Ale at the Wetherspoons festival. He ended up in Derby and a merry night of beerage was had, to say nothing of the mini-fish-&-chips.

Bottles drank for the hell of it; Thornbridge Alliance, one too many Thornbridge Halcyon post-lawn-mowing, Brooklyn-Schneider Weizen, Stone 08 Vertical Epic, Struise Black Albert, Williams Midnight Sun...

Beer cocktailing; mixing the Jaipur mojito, created by Alistair Myers of Rowleys Restaurant with a version bludgeoned togther by me for The Session

Local pub festivals for local people; the Royal Oak at Ockbrook offered up Wild Walker (shitty), Ossett and Saltaire (tasty) and Three Cats Cider (superb). Scott and Mary Frost enjoyed them, too, in their last pub festival before emigrating to the beer-wasteland of California ;-) Just a shame that we never took those milds from Falstaff, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, and mixed them to make an Ursa Middle...

Finding good pubs new to me; in my hometown of Derby (Mr Grundys, the refurbished Silk Mill), Birmingham (the Old Fox which had some barnstorming mild) and Lincoln (Green Dragon)

Drinking with Kiwis, part 2; sharing Drie Fonteinen kriek with award-winning homebrewer James Kemp and the Tigger of the Peak, Kelly Ryan, late one afternoon at the Coach & Horses, Dronfield

Mixing rail and ale; the superlative Barrow Hill festival that brought together train rides, plates of liver & onions, great cask beers (Falstaff Wilko, Lytham IPA, Amber Samuel Slater IPA) and a longer linger at the continental bottle bar for the hop delight that is Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA.

Two fests in one day; Newark and Lincoln CAMRA, some new brewery scoops (Old Slewfoot, Andwell), some fantastic light, fruity beers (Brewsters Kiyo, Brew Company Spring Bock), proper coarse pork pie (Porter's, Newark), proper chewy flapjack (Curtis's, Lincoln) and the anti-mild that is Brewdog How To Disappear Completely.

A classic pub-fest; The Coach & Horses in Dronfield is an outstanding pub - Thornbridge beers, amazing food, superb staff, cool music and wall art - so the prospect of its first beer festival was literally mouthwatering. And so it came to pass over a weekend blessed with sunshine for its BBQ. Great keg beer (unfiltered Moravka lager, Lovibonds Henley Gold), great cask beer (Thornbridge/Epic Halcyon, BrewDog Edge), great blues music and barbequed mackerel on a stick. Grrrreat! >