Bit late with this one. Let's rip through the write-up; six reasons to be cheerful about Peterborough Beer Festival, ten beers reviewed in three words each, four questions I quizzed CAMRA about and one declaration.
Reasons to be cheerful:
1) It didn't rain on Thursday. If it has rained previously, there was no Somme-like gloop pervading the tents.
2) Beer quality was spot-on.
3) Beer range was spot-on.
4) There was Northamptonshire skittles, dodgems and a caricaturist. None of which I got to experience coz I was too busy drinking (see points 2 and 3 above).
5) Grasmere Farm knock out a very generous hog roast.
6) AlcofrolicChap and Lupulucy are fun people to share beer and banter with.
The beers:
1) Summer Wine, Resistance Mild - Kevin loved it
2) Adnams, Ghost Ship - Smooth citric drinking
3) Arbor, Oyster Stout - Tangy roast chocolate
4) Blue Ball, The Smoker - Smoked Fruit & Nut
5) Fuller's, Brewer's Reserve No. 3 - Figgy vanilla whisky
6) Fyne Ales, Sublime Stout - Seriously easy drinking
7) Hopshackle, Lonestar TPA - Hoppy? Definitely maybe.
8) Northcote, Jiggle Juice - A tangerine dream
9) Summer Wine, 7 C's of Rye - Bittersweet bittery bitterness
10) Thornbridge, Geminus - O.M.G.
And Oliver's Perry. The lodestone of any half-decent cider & perry bar.
The questions:
1) Plans to introduce a third-pint glass / measure? - raised by a number of punters and is to be discussed at the festival 'wash-up' meeting in October.
2) Bottles bought to be taken away from the foreign bar had to be collected from the CAMRA membership stand - why not over the counter like GBBF? -process seemed convoluted, trying to discourage people from walking around with bottles.
Here's hoping for a third-pint measure in 2012; other CAMRA fests with cash bars manage this well. As for the bottle takeaway... I'm not sure. I can't see many being dumb enough to buy takeaway beer and the wander round swigging from the bottle. As all onsite bottled beer was poured into your glass, there were no bottles knocking around and you'd stand out like a sore thumb if you were necking one. Maybe the takeaway could be bagged, taped-up duty-free style and then handed over?
As for discouraging people wandering around with bottles, several thousand punters were wandering around with glasses... unless they were polycarbonate???
I didn't ask about the lack of seating because, er, I got one. My advice for seating at tented fests? If you want one, get there early or take your own - I saw several Nottingham CAMRA members with camping chairs (they learn from experience).
All in all, probably the best Peterborough CAMRA festival I've been to. Numbers may have been down on last year - maybe not surprising in our straitened times when non-CAMRA members had to shell out nine quid entry, although the three quid glass rebate may have gone un-noticed by many.
Still, there were 26,000 punters who drank 97,452 pints of beer, 13280 pints of cider, 10,755 bottles and 6,500 glasses of wine. As this picture shows, one bearded Kevin seemed to enjoy himself...
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It goes a little something like this.
Sit on a train full of stinking wet-dog tickers. That's running late. Again.
Wade across the kind of mud that you expect to see medieval soldiers buried in, arteries spurting.
Buy a beer. Sit by the bins near the stage. Wonder out loud why you ever bother coming to Peterborough beer festival.
Because the choice isn't go / don't go. The choice is; miserable journey, sit by the bins, don't get to drink the beer you wanted, get accosted by rabid ticker, wade through gloop, sit by stinking ticker on the train, go home.
Or;
miserable journey, sit by the bins, drink the beer you wanted, get accosted by rabid ticker, wade through gloop, sit by stinking ticker on the train, go home.
One year I experienced the strangest thing. Call it... fate, call it luck, call it karma. The trains ran on time and were clean. I got a seat at a table. Most of the beers were tasty. I caught a train home with a smile on my face.
But in the Venn diagram of Peterborough beer festival experiences of good times, good beer, good company, 2008 was an infinitesimally small cross-hatched patch.
Let it never be said, however, that this toper doesn't rise to the challenge.
If it doesn't piss it down, if the trains don't experience the wrong sort of bull semen on the line, if I don't the liver bored out of my by some bastard ticker who recognises me and wants to know why I have a problem with corduroy, then...
... I will be at the Peterborough CAMRA beer festival this year.
Why?
For Blue Monkey and Brewsters and Fuller's and Hopshackle and Magic Rock and Northcote and Oakham and Summer Wine and Thornbridge and everything else that a cursory glance at the beer list missed.
It's possibly the best cask beer offering at a CAMRA fest apart from Nottingham. And I want to be front and centre for it.
Besdies, there's always Cantillon, Boon, Rochefort and Orval on standby...
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Peterborough - *the* place in the Midlands for arson action, swathes of eastern European swede slashers itching for a return ticket home (where gas fitting has become more lucrative) and a stupendous amount of beer in a feck-off marquee during the middle of August. But is it quality beer? Are these two feckless raters just putting it on for the camera or did they buy Greede Kerching by mistake? Read on, dear toper...
Now, reluctancy is a core competency for me. And if a scoop is reluctant, it's ever more so if it involves a long-ish rail journey. When I could be in Sheffield instead. But there's a lure to Peterborough; 500+ beers, ciders and perries, a great venue, meeting up with fellow Ratebeerians. And, truth be told, an enjoyable journey. Foresaking the hell of a Leicester change onto the diesel cattle truck that is the Stanstead Airport service, I went round the counties via Nottingham and Grantham to revisit my trip earlier in the year. And, by buying two tickets - Derby-Grantham, Grantham-Peterborough, it cost me £16.30 rather than £25. Here's a Reluctant Scooper tip - if your scooping journey goes via a station you could change at after 0930, run the permutations through the National Rail site - the more you save, the more you get to spend on beer.
So then - Peterborough. Or 'Pity Borrow', if the Guardian is to be believed. I tried to walk past the first pub I saw, a Wetherspoons called the Drapers Arms, but failed spectacularly. And, Chambourcy Nouvelle, it was full of the unemployable, elderly and stinking tickers. You might say they were one and the same. I couldn't possibly comment. A swift half of Elgood's Peterborough Festival Special Ale Special Festival Thing was partaken. Sadly, detailed notes on its proper name or ABV were not taken. Tasty stuff, though.
Plenty of time before the fest opened for some photography. The parish church and market place offered some inspiration, as did the ladies old bogs... and the cathedral is always an attraction for me. So I took lots of piccies of the green by the West Front instead. I dared not go inside the cathedral, as I'd have spent several hours shooting the stained glass. And the painted ceiling. And the fan vaulting... it's indeed a hard knock life to be a keen lensman on a well-lit day in front of one of the world's finest Norman cathedrals. But I had beer to drink.
Off to the big PB fest, then. Down near the river, a quad of marquees, like Worcester BF on steroids. This pic was taken later in the day on exit; with twenty-ish minutes to opening time, the queues were stretching wayyyyyy back down the green stripe. Fortunately, my hyper-organised friends were bagging a head-of-the-queue spot. Mark and Hughie had both endured uncomfortable bus slogs to get here - that'll learn them for living in the arse-end of nowhere. Or Bedford, in Hughie's case. You might say they were one and the same. I couldn't possibly comment.
As we're sad fest types, we had our own glasses and soon secured a table close inside the first tent. By the wine stall. Think; wine = women topers; women topers = tight jeans and low cut tops. Dirty old feckers who ought to know better with our age and marital status? Hell, yeah, but what happens on tour stays on tour... (honest, Mrs H!!) Beers were bought and I was in full-on semi-reluctant scooper mode. Three Ratebeerians, buying halves, can manage a scoop from each glass. Only a sixth of a pint each, but ostensibly enough to get a flavour of the ale.
And, for what it's worth, those beers glowing in the photo were (l-r): Son of Sid - Muck Cart Mild (bought by Mark). Earthy and lactic. Yard of Ale - First Yard (bough my Mark in my glass even though I wouldn't have scooped this shite). Backyard, more like; had the odour of cobbles relieved on by a dog several hours ago. Leeds Bombay Sunrise (bought by Hughie). Butter. Bombay Butter. Fairy nuff; it got better later after some air was whipped into it.
For me, the story of PB BF was my cross-country odyssey. Denied at Worcester, the list here proffered potential and my Ratebeer wingmen could support me on my mission from sea to shining sea. Well, consecutive counties with a start in Northumberland and a finish down in Cornwall. Fortified by a roast pork cob (NOT a hog roast, you need a pig twirling on a poker through its arse and gob for one of those, not just flabby slices of whatever steaming in a stainless steel hopper), I set off on my journey.
Well, thanks to Mark's excreable choice from Yard of Ale, I needed to backtrack. Up to Northumberland, then, for a Wylam beer. My only known prevous for this brewer was an easy going gold (Gold Tankard). Sadly, this one didn't really hit the spot. Another buttery bugger, diacetyl rampant, though it tasted better than the aroma suggested. Fortunate, really.
North Yorkshire next, and a Reluctant Scoop of a new brewer for me. I'd have been happy to settle for a Brown Cow beer (or do I mean Suddaby's?) but these desperate scoopers went for Redscar's Sands. Brewed on the five barrel plant at the Cleveland Hotel in Redcar, this is one of the beers brewed by licensee Chris Appleby who is attempting to bolster trade by opening a microbrew plant on the premises. Light, itchy, some fruit fights through. It's a dependable beer, the kind that you'd pray for in any hotel. More power to his entrepreneurial elbow.
A skip to West Yorks next for one of Mark's suggestion's, Osset Black Bull Bitter. I enjoyed this, despite my palate wishing to downgrade from a sweeter bitter. The other guys weren't as keen, though I wondered how much this was due to preconceptions of the brewers style. A sort of homecoming for the next beer; Derbyshire had to be represented by Thornbridge, with a festival special on offer too. Karnival was Thornbridge-by-numbers and I didn't care; fat citrics, wincing nettles, baked lemons... of course, I loved it. Hughie was unsure, called it 'predictable', but I'd rather predict this great taste than Reluctantly Scoop a poorer beer.
Westwards again to Staffordshire and Enville, only holding off the Ginger as Hughie was equivocal about not having it. I plumped instead for their White, an OK-ish beer in my book. Often found through the summer at the Smithfield in Derby, it's not an overly wheaty white but still fairly enjoyable.
With only one Warwickshire brewer represented here, the next beer for me had to be from Church End. The very name makes some scoopers salivate and others run for the hills. They produce an inordinate amount of specials, usually off-the-wall flavourings of stock beers (turkish delight, mint and celery seeds have all featured. Though, not necessarily in the same recipe). I went for their festival special, Passport to Peterborough, which was an un-mucked-about-with bitter. Just goes to show that they can brew a solid beer when they leave the mad box of additives unopened.
Because Hughie is a ratings whore and we're sat next to the wine bar, he couldn't resist trying a mead. The Lyme Bay traditional was fantastic, tons of Lockets-like honey with fat burnt butter notes too. It got even better when I poured the rest of Mark's Toloja cider into it.
After that brief break from beer, it was over to Gloucestershire for the next beer and Festival Gold. Sadly, this had drippy hops and a plastic-y feel, like a defrosting freezer. A quick hop across to Wiltshire was called for, offering the chance to try what was, for me, a new Hop Back beer. Groovy Mover was plain, straightforward, strong golden stuff which came as a relief after a few dodgy light 'uns today.
It was around this point that Mark had to go, as he had his epic return bus journey deep into the heart of darkness - sorry, Northamptonshire. Hughie and I soldiered on, with three counties left for me to chalk off. Somerset was next west, allowing me to pick up a beer with a familiar name from an unfamiliar brewery. I can only recall trying one Milk Street beer before (Mermaid) so I tried The Usual - at the Brunswick in Derby, that's the adopted name of Second Brew. This was an inoffensive beer, adequately hopped though rather rough around the edges.
Two counties left, then. Whereas at Worcester there was a wide range of beers form Devon and Cornwall, choice was restricted here. The Devonian representative was on-its-own Otter brewery. Now, given a choice, I'd usually go for another brewer before these. Nothing actually wrong with Otter beer, mind, it's just that to my palate they're simple and safe. But, notter lotter else to choose from so I went for Otter Ale. And you know what? It was super - even that hedgerow sweetness didn't put me off today. Clean malts, dry finish; like the Church End beer, it does the simple things and does them well.
And so, dydh da, Kernow. Twelve beers had brought me across the country and the last of England was to be Skinners Cornish Blonde. Truth be told, it's a bit of an -ish beer, wheat-ish, wet spice-ish, lemon-ish... the flavour fluctuates from mild sweat to spritzer lemon to soft bread rolls. Probably more enjoyable by the pint, by the sea. One day, perhaps...
Some good beers, then, with plenty of average ones. Which I find encouraging - I try to impress on fellow raters and real ale bods that average beer is something to be cherished. Because if we didn't have plenty of average beer, we wouldn't have the occasional excellent ones. And we woudn't have dire stuff like Greene King IPA to take the piss out of. Though, if you take the piss out of it, they'd be nothing left. (That line was brought to you by the Haddonsman Campaign for Recycling Crap Beer Jokes).
My fave from the cross-country yomp? Thornbridge Karnival, of course... but Church End Passport to Peterborough ran it a surprisingly close second.
Lots more beers were imbibed through the day. Some standouts included Son of Sam's Muck Cart Mild, Purple Moose Tryfan and Ascot Anastasias Stout. Beer of the day, though, had to be the bottle from Hopshackle - Restoration was a bold Belgian-style strong beer with just bags of spiced alcohol, leather, pepper, chocolate... the flavours list seems endless the more I think about it.
The journey home through rolling fields and fens gave me time to reflect on the fest. It was a relaxed do, securing a seat close to the entrance helped so we didn't feel hemmed in. Plenty of room around the marquees (at least there was during the day), room outside too albeit not as inviting as Worcester. The food was good - though a proper hog roast would have gone down better. I should have had something from the ever-excellent Charters BBQ! Toilets were odd, all rather beaten and battered. And the beer.... there were some really tasty ones but a fair few that were bland or bordering on poor condition. I enjoyed the day - it's always good to meet up with some Ratebeer guys - but on reflection I'd rather be at Worcester. Consistently good beer, an easy-going vibe and great bottled cider won the day for me.
But some things remain the same - watching blue skies fly by on the journey back and a pint of White Feather in the Brunswick before setting off home. No matter how far I've travelled, how many beers I've had, there's always room for one more. Looking back through the programme as I supped that last pint, I decided that I probably won't be going back to Peterborough next year. And so the cycle continues; I go to PB, enjoy some good beers, endure more average ones and throw a few dire halves, make the long journey home, decide to give PB a miss the next year, do that and then go back the year after, enjoy six good beers.....
If you're at the festival in 2010, I'll be the one sat near the wine bar wondering out aloud if I missed anything decent the year before.
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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.
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