Back in April, we had a National Cask Ales Week. Apparently. A concerted marketing effort by Cask Marque via (in the main) pubco estates to increase the sales of regionally-brewed beer. So, England expects and all that twaddle - I did what I needed to do. I went out to drink the finest keg beers I could find.

As you may have guessed, I felt ambivalent about National Cask Ales Week. It didn't involve all cask pubs as it was driven by Cask Marque; not all pubs think cold cask beer is the way to go. The marketing gets lost in its own hyperbole (if, as they say, 65% of adults haven't tried cask ale, how can it be our 'national drink'?). And as for the Saturday's world record attempt for the largest number of people giving a toast.... ".. participants don’t have to raise a glass of cask beer but can use any drink, although cask is preferable". WTF?

So I wasn't particularly surprised to see a headline saying lager was a valid part of the week's proceedings. Budvar was being offered at the The Crooked Chimney in Lemsford as a way of 'encouraging lager drinkers to give something more like a real ale a try'. Still with me? It's gets even more mind-bending: up then pops Roger Protz to say, "Not many people realise that Budvar is actually the only craft lager approved by the Campaign For Real Ale", adding that Budvar is "the only lager that's not CAMRA shy!".

I'd noticed that quote cropping up in some more stories.... then realised all the pubs in question were in the Vintage Inn group and part of Protz's quote is featured on their website.

So, let's not worry too much about all those English cask lagers, eh? Or even consider that fine Derbyshire keg lager, Moravka. But anyway - if Rog says its OK to drink keg this week, I'll go with the (smooth)flow. On Wednesday night, then, I took an amble upriver from where I work into Derby to see what non-cask delights I could find.

First stop; the Brunswick Inn. Fourteeen cask beers, half from their on-site brewery, two of them (White Feather and Triple Hop) being two of my favourite beers. But, I had a mission so I was on the Budvar. And you know what? It looked good - even the tap looked good. Clear and sparkly. Tasted refreshing. There I was, in a suit and tie, drinking lager. With out-of-towner cask-ale-drinkers almost looking down their nose at me whilst exclaiming "... they brew *this* one at the end of the corridor, you know. It's lovely and malty!". How the other half drink, dear topers...

Next door to the Alex next where there's always a few continental keg offerings. Indeed, today there was a new addition and a Reluctant Scoop for me, Duvel Groen. Which was OK-ish; dry and spicy, slight creeping sweetness. But every mouthful reminded me of just how great 'full-fat' Duvel is on draft. And at 2.40 GBP a half, I wasn't rushing back to buy another.

Ever onward upriver to the Smithfield. Now, my knowledge of keg beer here is akin to a pair of bridesmaid's knickers - scanty. And so was the selection; Carling, Guinness, Strongbow.... with a fail whale making its way up the Derwent, I had to Reluctantly drink cask. Didn't want to. Vile, living, yeast-ridden stuff. So, with a heavy heart I suffered a pint of Whim Hartington IPA. Every mouthful tasted like the last leper from hell was shitting into my mouth. Obviously.

(for the benefit of my humour-challenged readers who send me incomprehensible post comments, the above paragraph is an example of irony. Have you got your favourite crayon handy? Let's write it together - i-ron-y. Well done!)

Last stop, Royal Standard. Renowned for its generally overpriced continental keg offerings, I plumped for a glass of Schneider Weiss and took to the deserted roof terrace. With the sun slumping over the river and nascent leaves waving in the evening breeze, I sat and slurped the Schneider. And it was damn fine. Refreshing, sippable, mild spices and easy esters. I actually enjoyed it more than nearly all of the usual Derby Brewing cask fayre also on offer.

You know what? I really enjoyed that evening. Yet at the same time there was a tinge of sadness. Where's the quality keg beer brewed in the UK? Apart from Taddington's Moravka, where's the tasty UK keg lager? Where's the experimentation by major micros or regionals? Are they afraid of being accused of selling out? I know CAMRA will gripe about keg... but the queues at the foreign draft bars at the likes of Reading and GBBF tell their own (profitable) tale.

Ask if it's cask? Fair enough, but kegs don't always contain dregs... >

Dogs return to vomit. Christmas makes madmen of the out-of-season sane. So whilst the rabid herd trudge the soiled High Streets, I'm off to my old drinking grounds for dodgy jokes, annoying whistling, the vague smell of shit and an unexpectedly tasty pint.



Days like these start in a Wetherspoons. For the unfortunate Magners drinker, they probably end here, too, in a pool of vomit / ocean of bitter recrimination / puddle of squandered remission. At least the Babington Arms caters for the breakfast-loving toper as well as the wannabe ASBO enthusiast. Occasionally, I'll have a pre-10am pint to wash down the microwave-up and toast, but today's Leatherbritches and Falstaff fayre doesn't tickle my palate. Here be the lager boys who didn't get to bed last night. At least, not their own, as they're busy texting apologies to their Mums when they think their mates aren't looking. Here too are the nth iteration of today's trackie-clad slackers, rosy nosed tweed-ish drunkards who insist the world was a better place when they could beat the wife and contract emphysema indoors. Both groups hate the fecker who raised taxes and denied them their uncivil liberties. It's just one lot doesn't know who this Thatcher character is. The yoof of today eh?

With a startling outbreak of middle-class affectation, I leave the pub to go get a large strong cappuchino, read the Observer review section and then fail to find any suitably freshly-baked baguettes. Honestly, Jez, what *is* this world coming to? Shortcutting to the pub involves getting through Westfield, the could-be-anywhere-in-the-capitalist-world shopping centre. It's hitting full-on centrifugal mode, aisles a blur of misplaced consumerism, jaded shoppers plastered against walls when their cards have been ripped clean of credit. Unwilling to purchase, I am swallowed up into the place and irritate my way clean through, shat out via the smokers' alley at the back.

Ten minutes of a chill wind and I'm at the Brunswick. The attraction of this pub on a Sunday is threefold; no diners, barbed banter and a decent dark pint. Landlord Graham will be off-duty and moaning about the football results, regular Lou will be moaning about losing bets to Graham, other barflys will moan about anything the Daily Mail has been moaning about. And then, like a butterfly braving a stormy afternoon, someone will air a few words that brighten the bar and replace bile with delight. Today, Lou asked Ralph (the cook) how he made the parsnip soup. "Well," said Ralph, "I take a parsnip. And some water. And blend them. And that's parsnip soup". And no-one was too sure what was funnier - Lou's question or Ralph's studious answer. But laughs like drains were exhibited all round. I nearly decorated the table with an as unyet-digested mouthful of Brunswick Black Sabbath. So I guess pub humour is where you find it.

No coal fire at the Brunnie - "times 'r 'ard" says Graham - so I shuffle fifteen paces into the Alex for warmth and beer. Alan was dragging his fire into life with wet wood; reluctant flames still spark, though. No other customers to enjoy it, mind; half an hour of my failings to crack the Azed crossword are accompanied only by a pint of Dark Star Winter Solstice and Alan's off-key whistling as every twelfth dart misses the board and rattles the floorboards. The pint is one of the finest seasonal brews I've had this year, packed with gingery bits and surprisingly aggressive hops. Indeed, it's the kind of beer that tests keenly my Reluctancy on a cool afternoon; upriver I must go, though.

It's a turbid Derwent today, heavy rains lend the water a stewed-tea feel. Sadly, that has an obvious implication for riverside pub The Smithfield - storm drains rise and the whiff through the bar needs something hoppier than Durham White Something to neutralise it. It has a fair crack at it, though, as I'm not gagging my way through reading the Morning Advertiser and The Publican. Quiet here, too; landlord Roger says would be happy to see more pubs close as he'd get more customers. Not sure that they'd leg it over the river, though, even for his excellent beer. Trade tales are exchanged across the bar between licensee, brewer and consumer, all three feeling that they're taking it up the keester from the taxman. It's times like these you wish for a recently-redundant tax inspector to walk into the bar, but you can't have it all.

Another five minutes upriver to the Royal Standard and dreams of dark beer. Amazingly, I didn't have to take pot luck on their recalcitrant guests as Trev Harris had deigned to brew a black 'un. Christmas Porter was velvet enough with some rich fruit notes lurking in the edges. Last described by a Brunswick regular as a cross between "a wine bar and I don't know what", the Standard is a bar masquerading as a pub with the un-nerving habit of serving decent real ale whilst alienating a number of real ale drinkers. More room for me, then; I'll still dispute Harris's pricing policy (charging over two quid a pint for his own weakest beer) but the place is affable enough. The atmosphere isn't painted on the walls - indeed, it's whatever you bring along with you; old friends, extended family, bitter partner, sweetheart, well-thumbed broadsheet.

My bus leaves from round the corner and I'm surprised to have spent three hours on this slow crawl. Then again, this has been a dog-eared slipper of an afternoon, knowingly comfortable with a stubborn sole. >

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!
>