"Evening, Boris!"

It had been a long, long afternoon. Taking a hangover to the cricket seemed the decent thing to do. Derbyshire v Notts developed slower than a Pinter play. I slept the sleep that only county cricket fans know;  inevitable yet dangerous, as a thud through point peppered the seats nearby.

But I'd promised to go to Burton that evening. To be fair, Beer Town has very few reasons to make even the most beeriest of beer fans go there. But the Coopers Tavern is one of them. And the Honourable Order of Bass Drinkers is another.

Formed in 1967 by sports writers on the Manchester Evening News, the HOBD still gather and revel in their love of draught Bass. Every year they journey to Burton to tour the brewery (now at Marston's) and drink at the Coopers Tavern. And I took up their invitation to join them.

For those readers unfortunate enough to have never met me in person, I am blessed with a corpulent mien and a hairdo that resembles an exploding hay bale. Not dissimilar to a certain journalist-cum-politician with whom I share a surname. And a love of bangers and mash.

Hence the bellowed welcome.

After that? Well, what happens at the Coopers stays at the Coopers. Suffice to say that the chairman ensures that glasses never remain empty, a swift nod to the treasurer leads to more and evermore Bass arriving at table. Banter is redefined by a bunch of blokes who have been taking the piss out of each other for a long time. Grown men cry with laughter.

And all because there's a beer called Bass, one that some drinkers felt was worth fighting to find, one that they pride themselves on draining nowadays wherever available. From before CAMRA was founded, a mission undiluted, a motto pure and simple - "Never do things by halves".

The next time I meet up with them, I promise I'll actually ask them some questions. Like, was Bass really better back in the day - whenever that day was. Like, what draws you towards drinking Bass to the practical exclusion of other beers?

Like, what do I need to do to be voted in as a full member and be awarded one of those ties?

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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”.

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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. >