Fest of fun: Ilkeston

It's hard to ignore a beer festival when it's got a reputation for good local beers and it's only a short bus ride away. So, Rebecca and I ventured over to Ilkeston for their CAMRA festival on a warm Saturday in May.



This fest used to be held in the Friesland sports call in nearby Sandiacre but was moved to Ilson last year due to low attendances. The new venue is much better served by buses from Derby and Nottingham and so numbers through the door have risen enough to make the festival viable. And it's a superb looking room - a banqueting hall large enough to take the stillage and still have room for sitters and standers.

We arrived on the dot of opening to ensure we got a table nearest the lifts, all the toilets were on other floors and Rebecca didn't want to be fighting through a crowd in her wheelchair. Sat at the back, I journeyed up to the front of the room to fetch Bec's first perry of the day, Oliver's Medium. Always assured of a tasty drop with something from this producer. With the papers to read and decent perry, Bec was set up for the rest of the afternoon.























I plumped for a beer on the stillage next to me - Thornbridge Kipling. Well, it's a dirty job but someone's got to drink it.

There were a couple of standout beers. Hollard Lipsmacker was a good, gentle bitter and proves there's more to the brewery than Chocolate Clog. Beer of the festival for me was Atomic First Lightning, a Locket lozenge orange body, smells of freshly baked lemon meringue and has lashings of itchy lemon to taste.

But it's local brewer Funfair that caused me concern. These are usually excellent - indeed, the Sky Diver was in good nick and I was disappointed at missing out on the cask lager Fun Stripe. But Divebomber (voted beer of the festival) was strangely muted compared to my previous samplings and Metorite was decidedly warm. And that was the real problem - a fault with the aircon was taking its toll on beer quality. The staff were forced into filling bin bags full of ice packs to act as cooler blankets on the casks and by mid afternoon they seemed to be fighting a losing battle. Even the perry which Bec had continued to drink all session was starting to feel tepid.

We beat a retreat slighly sooner than originally anticipated due to the heat and cooled down at the nearby Spoons (The Observatory) with drinks that seemed frozen by comparison.

So, still a fest on fun overall? Well, I like the all-in-one venue, a decent mix of LocAle beers and proper morris dancers (the Black Pig Border Morris - check out their calendar).

We brought our own food but there was a restaurant downstairs. Loos were clean and functional. Easy to get to on the bus. But that beer quality was offish towards the end - to be fair, the staff were doing all they could.

Yes, then; still a fest of fun that I'll gladly give another go next year. Here's hoping the aircon holds up next time!