Today's Sunday Shining plan; fresh coffee, Spoons brekkie, nifty couple of halves, gardening, Moto GP, afternoon nap, roast bits of duck, Top Gear repeats, Brewdog, Iain Banks book, sleep.

In actuality;

0815 Home. Bunjalung coffee. More coffee. Some Twittering.

0945 Babington Arms (Wetherspoons), Derby. Traditional breakfast (black pudding, not mushrooms) plus tea and toast. No beer.

0955 Very annoying child nearby reads out loud the ENTIRE breakfast menu. Realise, amazingly, that according to Spoons policy and common law, you're not allowed to insert the nearest fire extinguisher into pretentious children.

1005 Family of four have now spent ten minutes deciding on the combination of breakfasts to order. Clue: if all you want is breakfast and coffee, please fuck off to a cafe who will gladly serve you up some slop on a plate without hacking off potential beer drinkers.

1010 Family from hell order breakfast. I order Mordue Newcastle Coffee Porter. They ordered vegetarian sausage. At least my beer tasted of something recogniseable - sweet coffee, spots of roasted toast, fruity uplift to the finish.

1035 Standing Order (Wetherspoons), Derby. Hideous amount of ruddy-faced pee-smelling alcos mixing uncomfortably with well-heeled but slumming-it shoppers for breakfast. Lager and muffins, respectively. I have no choice to but to scoop the Burton Bridge D'aft Burton Ale. That's a ' that looks like an r. Therefore, Draft Burton Ale. But, for hideous legal reasons, it's called the former. I used to love Burton Ale so much that I drank so much of the stuff that I shat myself on Doxey Marshes. Fortunatley, I was taking it easy this time - still tastes like someone lit a match and stubbed it out on your tounge. Still fruity. Still ruddy gorgeous - like Bass with balls.

1055 Market Place, Derby. Remembrance Sunday service. There's a reason I carry my Grandad Tom's 1939-45 star with me always. He said - Never Forget. I won't.

1115 Thomas Leaper (Lloyds), Derby. And the worse three words that can be associated with a beer you really want to try... Coming Very Soon. So, no Thornbridge Pioneer today. Happy to settle for Leeds Gathering Storm (reasonably inoffensive, darkish with thin finish, some milky chocolate) and Cains Raisin Beer (superb; amber body belies soft squashy fruit aroma and sustained jammy fat fruit flavour).

1200 Flowerpot, Derby. Oakham Baja 1000 to kick off proceedings; it's a trojan Oakham. Deeperish copper that explodes with creamy pineapple. I was all set for another until I saw....

1235 Headless Zymosis. Brewed in the spring, released for winter, this is a 7.5% beer that looks pale and drinks pale until the warm alcohol-laden creamy hops kick in and start knocking seven bells out of your sensitive parts. It's like being the frog in a warming pan - Zymosis won't make you recoil on the first sip; it takes time before you realise (too late) that your knees don't work as well as they used to.

1305 More Zymosis

1355 Even more Zymosis

1445 Just one more Zymosis

1600 Apparently, it seems that I made it back to the bus via Marks & Sparks. It's time to go and warm up bits of duck and uncork an aromatic wine to go with it.

And I have to go find a BrewDog bottle to review. Although, I'm feeling rather dopey and if I sit in front of this keyboard much longer I may just ikfdsndvordsgviowed,gv iihidskvgi

Sorry. Fell asleep, face down on the damn thing.

Sometimes, the best Sunday plans are the one's that aren't planned. >

My next three months of Sundays are taken up by long country walks. So you can expect a few rambles involving rural pubs and eclectic bus services. Meanwhile, it's the last day of my Christmas holidays so I forced myself round Derby for four pints. And another one.





There's something vaguely dirty about drinking alcohol before 10am. Unless you've been caning it all night and haven't gone to bed. Or it's New Years Day and you've woken early to find a spare bottle of champers in the fridge. Or you're travelling business class. But having a pint next to a cooked breakfast seems odd even for a Reluctant Scooper like me. At least I had the common decency to wait until I'd finished my microwave-up in the Babington Arms before my first beer - and at least my breakfast wasn't just a pint of Stella like half the old soaks in there. Despite the usual panoply of beers available I don't usually succumb to booze after breakfast here, but I don't usually see Thornbridge on offer. A pint of Kipling was almost ordered before a gem was spotted - Seven Heron, brewed by Melissa Cole at Thornbridge. It's a superbly smooth drop, light malts and creamy hops, just a hint of flint amongst those fat wet fruits. It was good enough to stop me being pissed off by whoever was whistling the refrain from Nessan Dorma, over and over again, out of tune.

After a spot of shopping, a damn fine cappuchino at the Grand Cafe Caruso and a laugh around the remnants of the M&S sale, I dragged my cold bones into the Brunswick. No coal fire at 1205 so I pitched up by a lukewarm rad with a pint of Father Mike's. Velvet liquorish is a glass. Really quiet in here, mind; I could actually hear myself drinking. The odd bus passing by and a foot sticking to the bar floor were the only sounds to keep me awake. And can I just say something about shopping? Glad as I was to buy a Simon Drew calendar, why are they selling at half price, with a further 50% off at the till, only four days into a new year? And how can a set of 'gentleman's beard scissors and moustache comb' cost sixteen quid? It's a rather small pair of round-tipped scissors, as used by primary school kids, and a comb that you used to buy for your Sindy doll. Not that I ever had a Sindy doll, of course. My Action Man always preferred Barbie. Even though he had no genitals.

The long haul of literally two dozen paces plonked me into the Alex. Alan was removing the Christmas decorations and ensuring that the Abbeydale Absolution was pulling through OK. It was, so I had a pint and By Gum was it wonderful with a rich creamy melon-melange. Quiet here as well, two guys in the corner discussing the merits of fewer megapixels and the cellar cooler vibrating the table to leave pattens in my pint. Eventually though the near-silence seemed to be mocking my failure at yet another Azed crossword in the Observer so I decided to go freeze my nethers off and slope up to the 'Pot.

Rewind. Play... 'Really quiet in here'... me and the barmaid and the off-duty cook and the off-duty-cook's mate. Almost two o'clock; I wouldn't see another paying customer for over 45 minutes. At least is ensured that the cellar bar was quiet, apart from the jukebox lurching into life every fifteen minutes (no problem with that when it's the likes of 'The Prince' by Madness). Un-Reluctantly I plumped for a pint of Headless Summat Else - rather like KSA or First Bloom, more than possibly a rebadge/mix but still wonderfully citric so I don't give a tinker's tassle. Then the entertainment arrived, a charmeless nerk who regaled his mate with such pearlers as "Belgian beer is shit, it's all lager", "Brooge, it's beer city", "that festival in Hanover, er, Hamburg... I was sick as a fucking pig in there" and my personal favourite on a Bremen beer festival: "there must have been 800 beers, nearly all free". Thankfully, all too soon he had to catch his bus home, probably to edit some Wikepedia pages. I celebrated his departure with a pint of Acorn Ahtanum, a copper/red flat fart of a pint with a clean grapefruit feel with a little earthiness lurking.

Another fun Sunday - they nearly always are. Solid classics, new scoops, freezing cold pubs and a laugh somewhere along the way. If you can get into Derby on a Sunday it's well worth a trawl around - leave it until April and I'll show you around.
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It's hard to resist a good pub festival, particularly when it's at one of my favourite pubs on my regular Thursday night ramble. With a host of unusual beers on offer, the question was not how reluctantly I'd be scooping at the Smithfield in Derby but where to start?.

Regular readers known that I'm keen on keeping my figure in shape... and round is a good shape. I'm not one of these uber-thin ticker-types who live on railway station sarnies. So I filled up beforehand on a fantastically tasty Chinese at Yangtze in the Westfield centre; chilli chicken and chicken curry and, er, some other chicken was a clucking good combo to get your ribs sticky enough for severe imbibation. Suitably stuffed, a short walk downriver would land me at the festival. But it would have been downright rude not to stop off at my usual first-drinkie halt on a Thursday. The Royal Standard has made a name for itself with its combination of Derby Brewery Company brews, solid guest beers and cafe chic style. Happy as I am with Trev Harris' solid stuff, the guests are always a draw for me and choosing an Abbeydale beer over the likes of Wychwood was a no-brainer. If I'd engaged said brain, however, I'd have spotted and ordered the York Nelson Sauvin.

So, my plan for only one swift half had gone to cock already. Dear reader, I know you would never have forgiven me if I'd been stubbornly Reluctant and passed this one by. I knew it couldn't be as good as Thornbridge Kipling. Might it be as good as Alehouse's Sauvin So Good? Well, the York had a massive goose-gog aroma with more than a hint of dry nettles nestling in its fruity thicket. Sustained wincing fruit through the flavour, too, before a subtle creaminess calmed the party down. A damn fine beer, all the more so for being an unexpected bonus beer.

Scooping down at the Smithfield was, in truth, unusually un-Reluctant. I'd gone all old skool and compiled a hitlist culled from a Scoopgen post. With the outdoor festival bar not open when I arrived, I pitched up at my usual table in the bar by the jukebox and settled down with half of Oakham's Helter Skelter. It's beers like this that make the Smithy one of my Pubs To Love with plenty of hoppy stuff (the Whim and Headless brews on offer follow suit).

I won't write too much about the Smithfield here- it deserves a proper Pub To Love write-up in the near future - but suffice to say it's a cracking boozer. A recently reupholstered bar and lounge are served by a central bar bristling with handpumps. No festival stillage in either room, though, and the mini-marquees outside had plenty of trestles but nothing in the way of casks. So, where had landlord Roger Myring hidden his festival? Behind one of the downstairs gates, of course - a garage-type room built into the side of the pubs that was deep enough to take a forty-barrel stillage.

There was a fair crowd outside already by seven o'clock as Roger got the show on the road. First beer for me was Thornbridge Karnival, tried before at Peterborough festival bit I wanted a half-pint to savour. The latest beer in their Brewers Challenge, this is newest brewer Matt Clarke's entry. It still has that Thornbridge hop stamp albeit with a crepe sole rather than a steel-toecapped Doc Martin. That makes it a calmer and more contented brew compared to their usual output. Although you expect another hop kick, and in not getting it feel undersold, it's still an
almost assured beer with real self-restraint.

Next up were three beers that I'd eagerly awaited ever since seeing them on the list. Marble produce some darn fine beer; here in Derby, our wholefood shop Sound Bites are stockists of Marble bottles such as Lagonda IPA and their sublime Ginger. Here at the Smithfest, the brewer had three single-hop-varietal beers on offer. Sorachi Ace was very very pale, a wishy-washing-up liquid head with some juicy fruited hop oils prominent in the nose. Really creamy, too; the kind of soft hop that could glide a harsher one across a palate to good effect.

Their Mount Hood was fairly pale by comparison, with soft sherbet edges and a floral blush across the palate. The hops skip across a late aftertaste of lemon balm. But it was Brewers Gold that seized the day. Dark gold body, fresh floral perfume notes, blossoming hop oil on the end of your tongue and a hoppiness that never, ever stopped. This has the capacity to make its Crouch Vale counterpart seem amateurish by comparison.

A run of local beers would now do to see the night through. Headless 5 Gates was.... well, certainly not unpleasant, it just feels like a let-down in the afterwash of a few well-hopped beers. It's not too far removed from their usual output, rounded hops held up in a decent mid-citric body. In fact, it feels just a tad more more bolshy - dry hopped, perhaps? But there's some muddle here with the base beer not being allowed to shine.

Brunswick's Bellpair Vice was a groaner on two counts - a ruddy awful pun and the dread of another English Wheaty effort from the Brunnie. They do somethinga really well down there; White Feather, Father Mikes, beef & stilton baguettes.... but reet exotee brews laik vice? Most of the wheated oddities of theirs that I've tried have been not so much drain-pours but gutter watter. Remarkably, this stuff managed to keep on the right side of the fine line between wheaty sweetness and cloying yak. For most of the time. Best served cold and drank quickly.

Perhaps Amber could match the Bellpair's intentions and declare trumps with more of an edge to their offering. The brewer, Peter Hounsell, gives his beers straightforward names and likes to experiment with bold styles. This as least looked like a rugged wheat beer, with a murky honey coloured collar, but there was no esteryness nor any real wheaty bite coming through. Perhaps the temperature wasn't allowing these wheaty wonders to flourish?

Time for the night's last beer and an attempt to go out on a high. Well, a high ABV at any rate. The Headless Zymosis was brewed back in April and had maturing its way towards being a winter beer. Well, the weather of late has been decidedly parky, so no time like the present for cracking open a cask. Apart from a dulled deep amber body, nothing up front suggested its strength in depth, a fairly bland nose for a 7.5% warmer. Then thirty seconds later, the heat is on... that higher register warmth of spice followed by the reflux burn of candied Deep Heat. With your middle organs now coated, the palate anticipates the aggressive nature unfolding in the glass and replaces spiced fire with hop ire.

It's a Keyser Soze burn, though - a flickering flame, a darting burn along the damp boards til like that... it's gone. Until the next mouthful. My notes on the night compared the feeling to that of inhaling too deeply whilst changing the water in a fishtank. I still have no idea why I wrote that - especially as I haven't kept fish for over twenty years.

Outside it was dark now, the R&B band were in full funk and ordering beers was best achieved by holding up the requisite number of fingers corresponding to the number of the beer on the board. So, few takers for number 39, unless you roped a few others into helping you order it. Though it probably wasn't worth all that effort for a Church End special. I kept on with #1, Zymosis. Hard knock life, eh?

All in all, a good night with mainly decent beers. And *that* jukebox - The Who, Led Zep, Thin Lizzy, Issac Hayes, Suede, Placebo, Cream, Ian Dury, Madness, The Jam, The Clash... stopping scooping was a Reluctant choice, but there's only so much Zymosis a man can drink on a weekday.

A long day's recovery on Friday in front of a static spreadsheet and a regular supply of bacon cobs set me up for a return on the Saturday. Mrs H was tempted out to enjoy some cider and a few of the old faces were bound to drop by. Indeed, Cycling John dropped by (without the Claude Butler) and my erstwhile drum tutor, Andi 'the drummer in Endorphin Rush' Evans was already installed outside with his wife Julia and their rapidly-growing nipper, Emily.

I was in very Reluctant Scooping mode today - the emphasis was firmly on drinking with friends and taking things easy. There were, of course, several ticker tables - some of which were their usual over-zealous selves with bottling lines in full flow and spittled beards outshouting each other over contentious abv recollections.

The weather stayed fragrant enough to stay sat outside next to the bar. That meant the beers were knocked off in quick succession, with more Marble Brewers Gold being the first order of the day. Mrs H was in her element with a barrel of Three Cats medium sweet cider to yomp through. Away from the Marbles and Zymosis, today's beers were OK but not gobstopping - Great Gable Illgill IPA was fairly anonymous, Black Hole Milky Way not as biting as I remember it. The real standouts were from Hopshackle; although their Amber Smooth was fairly anonymous, the Double Momentum and Historic Ruby Mild was were huge beers. The mild in particular had a real edge to it, lactic smacks with very berry fruits catching your taste buds almost unawares.

Ever impressive was the food here - the Smithfield chip butty is a thing of legend and I was more than happy to reacquaint myself with the full-on dripping-butteryness experience. Mrs H's tuna melt looked disgustingly good, too, and Cycling John's sausage cob with onion rings in it looked - frankly wrong, but he assured me it tasted good ('edible skins.... makes all the difference' he assures me).

It's been a rambling write-up, but that was the nature of this fest. Some superlative beers, some threatening a vague promise and not delivering, top tunes, a smidgen of sunshine, good times all round. Roger and Penny do a top job here, it's an oasis of funtime drinking that brings a little of the laid-back country boozer feel into the city. Oakham, Whim, chip buttys, free jukebox. Pub fun? Done!
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