In a previous job, I had to visit our offices in Stoke. With the CAMRA beer festival venue close by, I made sure that I scheduled a trip to the Potteries at just the right time. Nowadays my Friday outings are few and far between, so this year I took a Saturday trip to Stoke instead.

With an early-ish arrival into town, I headed for the nearest Spoons. I remember The Wheatsheaf when it was fairly dingy music venue in the eighties; sticky floors, loads of pillars to stagger into and all the ambiance of an underground car park during a power failure. Now it's a light and airy pub with some great guest beers. I scooped the Riverhead Liquorice Stout simply because it sounded interesting - and what an awesome flavour it had. Bags of dusty brown liqourice with unsurprising coffee and mild chocolate hints.

It's only a two minute walk from the Spoons to the festival venue (King's Hall) so I trogged off and joined the queue. Thankfully not much of a queue, just a few hardy topers braving the chilly breeze. Full comedy marks go to the guy behind me who attempted to whistle the theme tune to 'The Littlest Hobo' but ended up on the theme tune from 'The Monkees'.

With doors open, I grabbed a glass and flew upstairs to secure a seat by the foreign bar. But there were no seats set out - AARRGH! So, back downstairs to grab a piece of the stage before any band arrived. The King's Hall is an impressive space, a stage set at one end with a balcony at the other and a superb ornate ceiling. With the brass band not due on for a while, at least the stage edge gave me somewhere to lean against.

The issue with beer festivals on their last day is that you've really got no idea what's going to be available, even if beers have been held back for that day. That doesn't bother me too much anymore; random beers have an attraction and if the choice was uninspiring I'd just hop back on the train and carry on drinking in Derby. Thankfully I could start with one of my favourite beers - so with a half of Thornbridge Kipling secured, I went for a wander around the bars to see what was left.

Surprisingly, there were quite a few of my preferred beers still knocking around. Better still, the festival seemed to gain a second after about an hour when some weighty beers suddenly seemed to become available. Every beer was in good nick and I was able to Reluctantly Scoop six new beers;

- Beowulf Killer Stout; a parched-dry stout with obvious alcohol
- Crouch Vale Wild Hop; slightly sweet, fairly crisp
- Lymestone Stone The Crows; strong autumnal ale with roasty wheat in there?
- Oakleaf I Can't Believe It's Not Bitter; citrus zest and a sweet vein
- Pictish Z Rod; a well-balanced pale ale
- Titanic Maple Smith; Captain Smith with added maple syrup; malty, sweety, not cloying

As well as the tried and trusted Thornbridge, I was happy to sink a half of Falstff Wilko, one of my favourite barley wines. It's only supposed to be brewed during the Rugby World Cup or Six Nations, so I don't know if this has been knocking around a while or Falstaff have decided to brew it for the winter. Either way, I'm glad to get another taster of it - aggressive alcohol cuts across the malt from start to finish.

I didn't find the food outlet here - it was probably lurking down one of the hospital-like corridors. Fortunately I bought a pork pie with me (a fairly crumbly Melton job from Sainsburys). Yummier were the almond croissants (from Sainsburys as well), I used to have these every time I visited Stoke when I used to work for a nearby college.

As the Audley Brass Band took to the stage, I took off to the cider bar. Plenty still left here - and I don't know if this is just a Midlands thing but the ciders and perrys all seemed to be great value in comparison to the price of strong beers. I was happy to try the Ross on Wye whisky casked dry cider again and it didn't disappoint.

To round out the festival, I took a trip upstairs to check out the foreign bar. Nothing really grabbed my fancy, though I was tempted by the Hopsinjoor that I tried back in July at Derby's fest. Sadly they'd sold out of Gouden Carolus Cuvee van der Kaiser, a bottle of which I usually buy here and drink at Christmas.

A surprisingly good festival, this; I knew the beer quality would be good but didn't honestly expect such a range of great beers to still be available on the festival's third day. By two o'clock it was busy but not cramped and still offered quick service at the bar. With my pick of the beers polished off, I had enough time left to pop down the road to Titanic Brewery's new pub, the White Star, for a decent pint of Captain Smith's alongside a bacon & cheese stuffed oatcake.

It's been enjoyable to find a festival in fine fettle on a Saturday and a couple of good pubs within sixty seconds of each other. I'm overdue a trip around the six towns; I certainly won't leave it a year before I visit Stoke again.
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(Only six months late with this one. Must Try harder. And Drink Less....)

My old job afforded me the unrestrained joy of infrequent trips to Stoke-On-Trent. Usually, having fixed yet another banal IT problem and scoffed a couple of almond croissants, I tend to make like a shepherd and get the flock out of there.

But there seemed to be enough pubs around the five towns to lash together a crawl of sorts, so I decided to meet up with Foggy and Clegg - I mean Brian and John - to see what Stoke had to offer the discerning beer drinker.


On the way to meet the others at the rail station, I found it hard to resist calling in the Stoke Wetherspoons, The Wheatsheaf.
Now, I remember this place from my student days of yore when it was a live band venue with wazz-weak lar-gar - most of it split on the floor. Now, it's a fairly smart McSpoons with a good half dozen guest cask beers with a number of Titanic beers on show (more about that brewery later).Half of Phoenix Thirsty Moon in great condition was swiftly dispatched.

Onto the station to meet up with the others, inlcuding a special guest appearance from Stockport Dave. With the party all gathered together, it was on to a First PMT bus (stop sniggering..) for the haul up to Hanley then on to Burslem.

The journey was a bit of a grind; the bus in front of ours had been involved in a collision leading to slow going. Changing in Hanley, the next bus went on a circumnavigation of the retail parks before deigning to drive in the approximate direction of Burslem.

But, everything comes to those who wait. With a hop, skip and stumble across the market place we reached the Bulls Head.
A welcoming two room pub with subtle breweriania, this is the brewery tap for Titanic so it would have been rude not to try some. After the long haul, a pint of their Iceberg seemed just the ticket. And it was a corking pint, cool and crisp.

More Titanic was sank by the other guys. Still in thirsty mood, I spied some draught continental taps and plumped for a Blanche de Bruxelles which was OK but not as refreshing as the Iceberg.

Bellies were starting to grumble now so it was time to hack across town to our lunch stop, The Leopard Hotel.

A fairly unassuming building from the outside, the Leopard showed its spots as soon as you walk through the door with some fine tiling.

Crammed full of brass, stained glass and more fine Stoke ceramics, its a place with a tangible sense of history - more about that later.

A good selection of beers here - I sampled Northern Blue Skies, and their 'Blakemere' Kittiwake, Derby Summer Nights and Wold Top Mars Magic. All were in great form, though Blue Skies seemed to be at the end of the barrel by the time Stockport Dave tried it.

As for the food; a great range of pub bistro meals as well as a la carte. Dave and I went for sausages on a bed of bubble & squeak (grand squeak albeit a little light on the cabbage). Brian had his trusted ham egg & chips which featured wonderfully thick carved ham. But it was John's meal that had everyone cooing - a whole ham hock slavvered in sauce.

After all that sustenance, what better than a history lesson? The hotel's owner, Neil, took us on a guided tour of the building as yet still closed up to the public. The Leopard was indeed a grand hotle of its day - - but has been closed up for many years. Neil showed us the rooms where Darwin stayed, where his Thai restaurant will be (with staff in correct dress). You can still see the bell pulls over where the bath would have been.

It was almost a shame to move on from here. But, with more pubs in the offing, it was time to catch the bus back into Hanley. Just time for the last, poignant history moment of the day; the commemorative plaque to John Baskeyfield. Stockport Dave had a train to catch, so we bode him farewell and headed to our next stop, the Coachmakers.
A multiroomed pub with a tiny front bar, this looked and sounded like a decent local's pub in the heart of the town. With the day warming up again, I plumped for a pint of William's Grozet, the gooseberry beer. And another pint of Grozet. I'd never had it on draught before, it certainly had an uncomprimising flavour in the way that I like a good ginger beer to be; no-holds-barred.

Whilst I stood outside watching the locals outwit the slow-moving traffic wombles by cruising the block and parking back up without a ticket, Brian and John were eliciting gen from a local who we'd seen a fair few times over in one of our regular Derby drinking dens, the Alex. This guy advised us of two more pubs to try; one was towards our last stop of the day and the other was only a short walk from the Coachmakers so we thought we'd give them a whirl.

The Unicorn is stuck on a semi-pedestrianised side street. With the shops closing up around it, it looked a little out of place. Inside it was rather desperate; all rather down-at-heel with clientele to match. I'd like to say the beer was worth the visit, but a rather bland Robinsons beer made it a faintly disappointing diversion.

So, back to the bus and the long road to Longton. It was one of those routes that seemed to serve every graffiti-strewn estate southward; great swathes of cheap sportswear and earwax-melting ringtones seemed to be the order of the day. And more sleeping policeman per yard than Pride Park coppers on riot watch.

Eventually we arrived at Longton (well, the bus terminated underneath a rail bridge). Just a short walk to the next pub (this was proving taxing for Brian, who rarely does buses and knows no such thing as a short walk except for the one from the Alex to his wife's waiting car).

The Potter was a pub I knew of old; hard against the Wedgwood factory, it's a two roomed wrap round bar of a boozer, with Coach House Dick Turpin on the cheap. Except today; five pulls stood bereft of clip and the only beer on (Lancaster Bomber) tasted like it had been on since the Blitz. With no other beer to swap it for, we put our glasses down and left the clueless barman to his arduous duties of serving Wifebeater to the gormless crowd congealing in front of the TV.

So, a couple of dodgy pubs but the next was sure to be Stoke's redemption. The Malt & Hops is a true free house with an established ale reputation. Another short walk (sorry, Brian) and we arrived.... to find the Baghdad-strength shutters well and truely closed on the place. They weren't due to open for another 15 minutes. With our train due in three quarters of an hour and another pub to fit in, we reluctantly jumped onto a bus headed back into the heaving metropolis of Longton town centre.

The Congress had been recommended to Brian and John back in Hanley. So, where was it? They weren't sure - after all, Longton can't be that large.... there seemed to be three main roads, we'd just travelled down one and not seen it so it was pick a route at random and give it a go. Was it on that road? Was it boggery. Three strikes and we're out of options; retreat was beat back to the railway station to wait for our Derby-bound train. And there wasn't even a chippie nearby.

At least the train was roughly on time. Just before I fell asleep, Brian put his hand in his coat pocket and pulled out... a copy of a Stoke CAMRA magazine featuring... a large advert for the Congress, with full address and phone number. My, how I laughed at the irony of it all as I nodded off and dreamt of all the ways he could be forced to drink smoothflow for all eternity...

We decided that it had been a real ale day of two halves, early glories dulled slightly by tired pubs later on and a spectacular miss just before the final whistle. The great thing about travelling back to Derby though is the chance of extra time in the Brunswick; a swift beer here topped off what had certainly proved to be an entertaining day. >