Time to get the boots mucky again. A market town with a microbrewery was the destination, a corking inn with Thornbridge beers was the waypoint. And there was even time for some lovely lager....


Slabs of sun were falling onto the Derwent Valley as the train criss-crossed its way over river and up to Matlock. Which is as good enough place as any to start the walk, particularly as it has a beer shop, a 'Spoons and a wonderful butchers. But you can't have everything - well, not at quarter to ten in the morning. The shop, Peli Beers, was shut so nosing through the window was as close as I got to bottles by the likes of Howard Town, Derventio and Spire. The 'Spoons (The Crown) offered promise too with clips for Thornbridge McConnels and Amber Imperial IPA but... yep, they were 'coming soon'. At least the butchers, Hambridges, delivered on the breakfast front; a bacon and sausage cob positively straining with juicy protein. Reluctantly, I had to pass on the the lamb & cider pie and the sage & honey sausages but did secure a pork-pie half for lunch.

From Matlock, it was a steady grind uphill towards High Tor. Behind, the town sprawls in brick and stone over the hill. Ahead, the path works its way close to the edge of the Tor, affording great views of the 400 foot vertical drop to the valley floor. I passed up on the Giddy Edge walk - the cliff face on your left, two feet of rocky path under your feet followed by several hundred feet of fresh air to your right - and zigzagged my way down through the woods and past the cable car station into Matlock Bath.


The smell of chip fat warming up, ice creams being eaten just after breakfast, arcade machines spewing loose change - Matlock Bath is like Skegness's country cousin. Once more famous as a spa town, it's now a tourist trap rammed with candy-floss-faced kids and chip-fuelled bikers on any weekend when the sun shines. I took a constitutional stroll along the river before partaking of a pint at The Riva, a pleasant place on the main road overlooking the Derwent where you can while away the hours watching domestic disputes develop amongst daytrippers as they make execrable attempts to park their Chelsea tractors. I needed a quencher so none of their malty-clack-sticking Marstons would do the job. A pint of Stella went down easily. Yes, dear topers, I'm not averse to a jar of Samlesbury's finest.

I thought I may as well let the train take the strain for the next few miles. Partly due to laziness, mainly due to me wanting to get to the next pub sooner. At least it gave me time to wolf down my pork pie half from Hambridges. Good chunky mixture of meats in here, crispy enough pastry, though perhaps not quite enough jelly. The train was on time and was busy - Derby County were playing at home and it seemed every other passenger was a Rams supporter. Never mind, eh! We can't all be cultured. Off at the second stop down the line, the wonderfully named Whatstandwell, and ready for the real slogging section of the ramble.


From the river crossing to the pub, it was a long haul uphill. It was one of those slogs over fields, a steady rise that was fairly easy going over the bare fields with boggy corners. Although the view ahead wasn't that inspiring - field, sheep, field, field, sheep - looking back eastwards there was the impressive Crich Cliff topped by the war memorial of Crich Stand. Crossing over the Midshires Way, the path still rose relentlessly westward towards the village of Alderwasley. Cutting across the edge of the village, a farm track takes weary toper legs up to this stretch's final field where a handpainted sign points the way across to the far corner and a stile into the car park of The Bear Inn.



Here was the kind of pub that weary topers dream about. Rooms with eclectic furniture were tucked away at every turn, some hidden behind curtains, some with candelabra, most with lunchtime reservations. The small bar had a clear divide with locals clustered around the wrought iron fireplace to the left, whilst tourists roamed off to the right where the blackboarded menus could be found. Those locals were landowners and landworkers; shovel-hands scooping up frothing pints and slamming down dominos with equal vigor.

And Jaipur was on. I'd heard that the Bear was a regular Thornbridge outlet and a pint of their finest hoppy, sticky-round-the-gums IPA slipped down alarmingly quickly. I was sat away from the bar, in a cubby-hole with high back settles, near enough to the kitchen to hear the pub bell rang out for service... and the local's banter about beer prices. "I remember when that would buy you two calves" said one tweeded farmer. "Aye, or a crate of Guinness!" replied his stout friend.

More Jaipur followed as I meandered through the Saturday papers. The food looked gorgeous - roast beef dinners, steak and potato pie, lamb shanks - but I'd promised myself a short liquid lunch here. Which meant I could make room for half a Halcyon; another (stonger) Thornbridge IPA with a head like hide peppered by shot; a chill-hop-hazy body hiding viscous, wincing, wonderful hops. As it was (literally) downhill all the way from here to Wirksworth, I forced myself into having another half before the final leg.

I was truly Reluctant to leave the Bear behind, especially with Thornbridge in such fine form. But that walk to Wirksworth wasn't going to get any shorter. The ribbon of road along the ridge gave great views away over to Crich Stand and the Derwent Valley, before the slow and sometimes muddy footpath descent into the town. They'd been celebrating their newly-bestowed Fairtrade status that day, but it was all rather quiet now; the market has packed up, the major's tea party had supped up. I bought two hunks of flapjack from a bakery-cum-tearoom and dreamed of fish, chips and Jaipur....

But there was a pub I fancied visiting here - in the hope of getting some Wirksworth beer. The Hope and Anchoris one of those imposing busy-market-town pubs, multi-roomed with a lounge given over to flat screen TVs screaming out a music channel that the barmaid seems to wish she was appearing on. The bar was quieter, just a few paper-readers supping slowly. A newish Wirksworth beer - Bunny Hops - was good enough with a refreshing and sustained gentle hop feel, quenching enough at the end of a good day's wandering. As the local football team turned up and the smoothflow began to, er, flow, I beat a retreat for the last bus back to Derby.



Good food, good beers and only slightly sore feet. I'll certainly be back in the summer to sample more Thornbridge in the Bear garden (couldn't resist...) and visit Wirksworth on a market day to see what Fairtrade goodies are on offer.

And I have to say... the walk was made possible by two trains and two buses all covered by a Derbyshire Wayfarer ticket. Check with your local council / transport authority to see if they do a county-wide ticket - it's a great way to toper out and about. >

The journey starts here. My series of Sunday walks where I'll aim to try beers from all twenty-six Derbyshire brewers starts in the snow with a trip up to Horsley Woodhouse for Leadmill and Bottle Brook beer.



It snowed hard earlier in the week, so I thought I'd stay local and walk as far as a pub with an adjacent bus stop back to Derby. Horsley Woodouse is home to the Old Oak Inn, the brewery tap for nearby Leadmill and its sister plant, Bottle Brook. Around about nine miles as the toper wanders, the walk takes in rolling fields and a few copses as the paths and tracks meander north from my front door in Spondon.

Up to Locko Park first, and as the path rose uphill to Stanley a flock of seagulls flapped off only to reappear when I cleared their patch and entered the wood. Up here, the fields had seen only a few hardy dog walkers in the last few days so I was able to tramp through snow deep enough to crumble over the top of my boots. The muffled crump of my footsteps then sounded more like I was cracking corrugated plastic when I got to field corners, frozen cow pats and puddles making the approach to stiles tricky.

Through the village of Stanley, I followed a brook westwards towards bluer skies before turning northwards for Stanley Common. An inquisitive horse arrived at more than a canter in one field; stoic bulls looked cold and bored in another. Large areas of frozen water had gathered in the corners of pastureland, blue-grey slabs warning of the need to edge next to the hawthorn hedges rather than plunge shin-deep into semi-frozen crap & mud.

After some exhausting tussock-hopping, I made it up to the main road at Stanley Common and the White Post Inn. The L-shaped bar was smoky, the wood fire reluctant to draw. Didn't bother me, though: I was ready for whatever heat it could muster. This was very much a bonus beer stop for me, knowing there was a chance of a local brew. Sadly, they had no Funfair beer on (their beers, by all accounts, make a regular guest appearance here) but a surprisingly decent pint of Burton Bridge Hearty Ale sufficed.

Leaving the diners to their roasts, I hacked my way northwards over icy tracks and fields of almost unbroken snow. Now and again, proto-snowmen appeared in fields, seemingly abandoned like broken neolithic stones en route to a higher place. By now, the sun reflecting off the snow behind me was making the back of my head warm. Still cold hands, though, as I was driven to snowball distant trees and scampering rabbits.

Over the A608 and a few west/north doglegs saw me clumbering over frozen tractor ruts towards a horizon full of Horsley Woodhouse. The last half mile uphill seemed to drag, the snow a little deeper, the mud gloopier, the hill ever just so a little steeper than I know it to be. But I was soon at the road and minutes away from the pub of the day.

The Old Oak Inn will get the full Pubs To Love treatment later on this year - it's been a long time since I last ran that feature. It has that understated character of a proper country pub; no false tackiness bolted to the walls but, instead, the quality you can't buy - people having a good time. The only food here is the selection of cobs & pork pies on the bar so drinkers here are really drinkers; some here for a swift pint whilst dinner is in the oven nearby, others on a leisurely half-gallon post-roast, and always at least one slightly sweaty walker ready for whatever is on offer.

The bar had six or seven Leadmill and Bottle Brook beers on offer. No other guests; when your own beers are of such range and quality, why bother? I took a pint of Leadmill Summer Hop just because of the sheer incongruity considering the weather. It's decent enough, blunted lemon with a creamy hop feel rather than anything aggressively citric. A cheese salad cob and pork pie were dispatched in short order, too.

My choice of Bottle Brook beer was a no-brainer; I enjoyed Louisiana Smoked Porter at the Derby CAMRA Winter Festival a few weeks back and was ready to enjoy a frothing pint of it. Not madly rauchbier and all the better for it - it wasn't as smokey bacon as the guy next to me was making out - plenty of ashen notes with steeped deep fruits.

A great attraction about the Old Oak at the weekend is the conservatory bar. Not that the pub really needs another six beers, but who's complaining? Run by the stalwarts of the excellent local beer freesheet the Rural Real Ale Drinker, the RuRAD bar offers gravity casks from brewers near and far. And here I was, Reluctantly Scooping, eschewing Thornbridge Jaipur for even more Leadmill and Bottle Brook beer. And - my gum -both scoops were excellent. Bottle Brook Red Chinook was crammed full of the aforementioned hop, almost too much of it. Leadmill Made in the USA had pockets of wincing citrics and a keener balance, a dazzling clear lemon looker with sweet drying hops all over the shop. It kept me going right up to when Mrs Reluctant turned up to give me a lift home (ah, the joys of rambles close to home).

So, nine miles into the quest and two brewers ticked off the list. If the weather stays fairer next weekend, I may push out further afield. As long as those fields aren't too full of melting cowcrap.
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There are twenty-six breweries operating in Derbyshire. Just over thirty years ago, there was only one. I'm going to celebrate the microbrewery explosion in the county with a season of Sunday rambles, each one ending up at a pub renowned for serving local beers.


Along the way, I'm hoping to meet up with brewers and topers and get a feel for why microbrewing in Derbyshire has become so successful. It'll take me on walks over nearby fields as well as to parts of the county that I've never visited before.

And it won't be all walk, walk, walk; I'll be shifting malt sacks and pulling pints along the way. I want to appreciate the full flavour of Derbyshire brewing, from producer to consumer. With some great scenery and a few pints, of course.

First walk will be on Sunday 7th February; where I end up depends on the weather. Always have a Plan B, my Dad taught me.... for me, Plan B tends to be a pub near a bus stop. Here's hoping for clear weather and clearer beer tomottow!
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