What I expected at the Nottingham CAMRA beer festival: excellent beer, excellent food, dodgy cover bands, sun splitting above the mansion house and casting jagged shadows all over the southern slopes down to the Trent Valley.

What I didn't expect: Gabriel Van Ingen taking portraits for a wet plate collodion project. A full write-up of Nottm's beer and food and food will follow. As will more photos. But, for now, here's a pic of Gabriel's pic of me developing. It had to happen sometime...

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Sometimes in monochrome

Sometimes in colour



You go to pubs and drink with people like this



And this



And this



And this

And you see a brewery grow from this


to this


And you have game-changing days like this


And attend events like this


And go to beer festivals like this


where you meet tickers like this


and this


and after sessions like this


you may need urinals like this


and you may regret looking like this


and giving your camera to someone else like this


And you end up doing this


When you drink beer

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One of this year's more notable beery happenings has been the opening of a new brewery for Thornbridge. From a compact and bijou setup in a disused stonemason's shed on the Thornbridge estate, the brewers now get to play in a custom-built facility just down the road in Bakewell. Sorting through some of my photos from this year, I found a few that show how the new brewhouse has developed.

Back in July, en route to the Hall for a brewday, Kelly Ryan gave us a sneak preview of the work in progress. The sheer step change from the plant at the Hall to this massively complex setup seemed audacious.


September saw the official opening. The place certainly looked good all scrubbed up - not that unmarked floors were expected to last. Looking down on the fermenters from the "crow's nest" where the brewing would be controlled, I had a gut feeling that Stefano and Kelly were finally getting the setup they'd dreamt about.


I've since been back to help out brewing a batch of Jaipur - as you sit in the control room above the mash tun and copper there's a constant background rattle of machines grinding into life, accompanied by hissing steam, the click-clack of switchgear and the all-too-often alarm as the computerised process demands attention at a critical stage of the brew.


It's all rather different from brewing on 'Old Faithful' back at the Hall:


As there's a little less for a brewer's mate to do nowadays, I caught up with some technical reading and indulged in some industrial photography. Shooting the orange glow of back-lit wort, tubs of hops and spacecraft-like vessels kept me busy.







There are more photos of Thornbridge old and new here along with some from the official opening. >