Having spent five hours in the garden molesting hedges and dodging fox shit, I was ready for a beer, so...

I went to the pub (Royal Oak, Ockbrook)
and had a great pint of cask beer (Brewdog Zeitgeist)
and a Stilton cob (brown bread, natch)
and bantered with the landlord over prices
and hummed along to a cheesy song on the radio
and deconstructed England's cricket tactics with a fellow toper
and thought, sod the lawnmowing, I'll have another pint
and drank more Brewdog whilst reading the paper
and finished off the Suduko
and almost finished the crossword
and stopped for another pint
and had twenty minutes of sitting and thinking and drinking
and then got a bus home before the rain came

And that's why I'm Proud of Pubs

It's Sunday. Fairly warm. I've been working up a sweat in the garden. Freshly showered, there's only one thing on my mind for satiating my desires. And there they are, chilling in the kitchen. A couple of Slags.

I'm not fussy this afternoon. Dripping wet with a bit of body will do me fine. And these are fine - a bit bubblegum around the edges but they go down easily. Quite sweet, actually.

They were procured for me in the back of a white van by Phil from beermerchants.com. Who, if HM Customs read this, will probably get a flashlight shoved up his back passage the next time he rolls through Dover. Sorry, Phil.

Slag is, indeed, a pale lager from Belgium's Brouwerij Slaghmuylder. I'll be honest, the tacky-chewy saccharine tang doesn't do much for me. Far more impressive was Klug, a crisp German pils. And I'm about to try a tin of Cristal. Sadly, beermerchants don't seem to import Binky, Sod or Plop. Yet.

Last Sunday saw me digging out my least-crumpled summer jacket, hoping that last season's strawberry stains didn't still show. I was off to Thornbridge Hall for their annual charity garden party and a few choice beers from the brewery bar.

The Hall itself is interesting architecturally, with alterations, reversals and restorations contributed by successive owners. There's a keen balance of old and new; spectacular stained glass in the wood-panelled stairway, a minimalist indoor swimming pool that looked cool in every sense of the world. What's really great about Thornbridge is that the current owners, Jim and Emma Harrison, are keen to show that it's a family home and not a museum. There's a widescreen TV on the wall in one room, a Wii Fit board sitting under the coffee table.



And I could have spent hours gazing into the stained glass. There's some outstanding examples, including an exquisite window by William Morris & Edward Burne-Jones. But I was here for the beer as well. Both the bar by the lawn and the one at the brewery were busy, the weather staying warm and topers lining up for something cool and refreshing. They weren't disappointed. One of Thornbridge's very first brews made a reappearance; Craven Silk has a soft, light body with just a hint of elderflower to lift the palate. Seaforth was an interesting take on IPA, purposely brewed with English ingredients resulting in a darker, dryer feel than the brewer's own Jaipur. Given that most English 'IPA' is as weak as dishwater and half as tasty, Seaforth was rather brooding and edgy. Hoppy without being resinous, offering an assertive balance rather than bitter aggression.



It was fun to take a wander around the extensive gardens at Thornbridge with a pint in hand and take in the sights. Families were chilling out on the terrace, a gaggle of teenage girls were making goggle-eyes at the band, green-fingered visitors (my Dad and sister included) were noseying through the greenhouses. There was something around every corner, including the supremely athletic women's Cotswold Morris team, Pecsaetan, and writer Pete Brown who was sampling beers with his wife Liz.

It all made for a relaxed and beery Sunday afternoon, one I'd thoroughly recommend you try next year if you can.

Unchuffed by the selection and prices at the Derby CAMRA festival, I thought I'd trawl round a few of the city's choicer pubs to see what they had to offer.

Brunswick - 12 beers, tried Westerham British Bulldog, a sparklingly well-balanced bitter

Alex - 8 beers, tried Holden Midsummer Witch, sweet malts aren't really my thing sadly

Smithfield - 8 beers, tried Abbeydale Belfry, chock full of tangy hops and cool toffee notes

Royal Standard - 8 beers (some pumps were dry), tried Derby Hop Til You Drop, flatter than a very flat thing with some hops leaking out

Silk Mill - 8+ beers (didn't count properly), tried Harviestoun Schehallion and Thornbridge Kipling, both in good nick, the latter being 40p cheaper here than at the festival.

Flowerpot - 30 beers... so many it was tricky to read the board. Tried Lymestone Ein Stein, lots of fresh hay and fat pears.

So that's seventy-odd beers, most in decent condition, plenty of variety, plenty of ticker-tastic stuff and local favourites. And keenly priced, too.

Yet.... with grinding inevitability, I ended up in the fest. £1.80 was just worth paying for half a Fullers Vintage Ale. £1.60 was still too pricy for Kipling but I couldn't resist (and I was also buying it for a fellow Tweeter who'd never tried it before).

Verdict? The pubs win on range, quality and price. - the Flowerpot alone is worth travelling to Derby for. It's a real shame that the festival this year for me is just an average barstop rather than an exciting centrepiece of a grander Derby crawl.

Let's start with the positives. Derby CAMRA beer festival is held in a large, air conditioned venue. The beers are almost always in great condition. Plenty of people drink there so there's a good atmosphere and brisk beer turnover. It's my hometown festival so I can get to it every night (for free, as a member) if I wish. But...

this year, the beer range is decidley average and the prices somewhat steep. The main bar has a clutch of festival specials and a whole heap of 'brewery bars'; as much as I like Fullers, Adnams, Marstons etc. I like to try something at a fest that I can't get in a dozen or so pubs around the city. Having a mere 18 breweries represented in the main hall seems paltry.

The Darwin Suite traditionally seems to offer an interesting range of brewers and beers, albeit only twenty at a time. But this year's list seems to revisit over-familiar fayre, with a few notable expections such as beers from Outstanding. Yet, one third of the beers on that bar last night were from one brewery... Everards being the sponsor of that bar.

And these beers don't come cheap. Breech the 5% ABV mark and prices start to rise above £3 a pint - and if you're drinking thirds, wer'e taling in the region of £1.20 for a 5-6% beer. That's the equivalent of £3.60 a pint. Yes, I know beers ain't cheap, axe the tax etc. But this is CAMRA. Where's the bargaining power? Where's the relationship with LocAle producers to secure regular AND special beers at a competitive price?

Thankfully I'm a CAMRA member. So last night I didn't have to pay four quid to get in. Friday night, pay seven quid entry to drink lots of regional beer? It's cheaper to go to the pub - and I can't remember the last time I wrote that.

It's not all moan, moan, moan though. There's still drink to be had from a great range of producers (both established and new), in a range of styles and at £1.20 a half it's much cheaper than beer of a similar ABV - the cider and perry bars at Derby have always offered quality stuff at competitive prices. If you want to find me at the fest, you know where I'll be...

With the sun blistering, my wife driving and my wallet ready for emptying, last week saw the Reluctant Scooper hit the A149 for a North Norfolk coast road topering session.

First stop, Sheringham. And coastal fog had shrouded this particular extension of God's waiting room. Hordes of cardigan-clad wrinklies were hauling their zimmers up to the sea wall only to be greeted by the kind of pea-souper that many hadn't experienced since the war. Possibly the Crimean. But we still went for our morning constitutional along the prom, if only to build up an appetite for an ice cream (by the renowned Norfolk creamy Ronaldo; thankfully it doesn't dribble fantastically before falling out the cone for no apparant reason).


In the end, I plumped for a crab sandwich instead, (crab flavoured ice cream... wonder why you never see that?) which was wolfed down whilst waiting for a pub to open. The Windham Arms had been recommended to us by a few people and also features in CAMRA's Good Beer Guide and so it would have made a great start to a beery day. Except... revised opening times meant it was firmly shut at 11am and we'd have to be on the road when it opened at noon.

Westward, then. Last year we discovered the Ship at Weybourne, a few miles along from Sheringham. With its recently refurbished bar, huge servings of whitebait and some damn fine Humpty Dumpty beer, it was one of our standout pubs of the week. It's still a smart looking pub, but sadly something's gone awry. It was quiet (literally) for an hour, with just off-duty staff gabbing at the bar. My first beer - Grain Oak - did have a hop edge but that was soon blunted by a flabby feel of a beer slighly too warm and flat. Buffy's Terrier wasn't in great condition either. And although the menu ran on and on, it was the same eight items in a baguette/on a spud. When the music went on and the tattooed over-fifties turned up, we decided it was time to push onward.

Lunch became something ad hoc and al fresco. Approaching Cley-next-the-Sea, we decided to stop off at Picnic Fayre. This is a corking deli that we'd found via the supplier page of Bray's pork pies and were delighted to pick up one of their Old Spot specials. A fat slice of chicken and five-herb flan along with a lamb and apricot pie made for a pastry-mongous lunch. We weaved our way along the main road between gaps in parked cars - navigating narrow roads with no pavements is a challenge for a wheelchair user and escort - and pitched up close to Cley windmill to enjoy our feast.

More beer was needed. Instead of joining the sunseekers outside the George Hotel, we decided to move on down the coast. It had been a few years since we visited the Red Lion at Stiffkey and loved the mix of salty old seadogs and Chelsea weekend warriors - both wore chunky jumpers, just that some were Army & Navy and others were Armani. But we were foiled; the pub was open, but the car park was now further up the hill than we remembered it to be. We'd have made it down to the pub but would have really struggled to get the chair back up again. A real shame - with no on-street parking at pub level, we had to keep moving on.

Another recommendation that had been made was the Lord Nelson in Burnham Thorpe. Genuinely historic pub (Lord Nelson's local), Good Beer Guide listed... sounded great. The Guide listed it as open all day, too. But not anymore.... here's the problem with a guidebook that's already months out of date when it's published. The change to opening hours isn't listed on CAMRA's site either - I assume they're relying on the local branch to forward such changes. Yes, we should have checked the pub's website or gave them a ring.



Shit or bust, then. The Jolly Sailors at Brancaster Staithe was as far as we could roam before heading back to Walsingham. It had a good write-up in the Good Beer Guide and was listed as open all day, but we've been there before. So choruses of hallelujahs erupted in the car park when we could see it was clearly open. And, what a find it was. A whole heap of rooms, comfy lounges and tiled bars were served by a bar at the front of the building. Towards the back, a conservatory set out for dining backed out to a sizable beer garden. We sat outside, a pint of Brancaster Best not satiating my hop need but at least it was in good nick. As we were out for a meal somewhere else that night, I tried really hard not to give in and order some whitebait. But failed gloriously - I'd barely had time to get back to my seat from ordering before a plate of flash-fried silvery fish appeared with a hunk of bread, chunk of lemon and pot of tartare sauce. Absolutely ruddy gorgeous - I'll be back next year for more. And one of their stone-baked pizzas...



A serendipitous day. If the pubs we'd known hadn't been of middling quality / shut / not too accessible, we wouldn't have kept going onto Brancaster and so wouldn't have ended the trip sitting in the sun enjoying some of the best whitebait I've tasted. And an important Norfolk & beer lesson learned - check those opening times before you go!

This has been rolling round my head since a drunken tweet about it a couple of weeks back.

#1 You do not talk about Hop Club.
#2 You DO NOT talk/blog/tweet/SMS about Hop Club.
#3 If someone says "no more hops", requires malt or goes limp, their drink is over
#4 Only two guys to a bottle
#5 One bottle at a time.
#6 No pens, no pads, no PDAs
#7 Drinking will go on as long as they have to.
#8 If this is your first night at Hop Club, you HAVE to drink a Double IPA.

Coming soon to a room upstairs in a pub near you???

Back from holiday to find a beer box lurking under my desk. Beermerchants.com send me the occasional selection box and this eclectic mix promises to liven up this summer's thirsty Thursdays.

Some, ahem, 'interesting' lagers in there from around the world, so it looks like I'll have a frozen pizza night at some point in the near future. The Bayreuther Bio-Weisse looks interesting. The Punks; well, I've something special planned for them. The Keizers will get shoved into a cobwebbed corner to be enjoyed at Christmas. As for the Mega Blend Geuze - There Will Be Indigestion.

This week, I'll mostly be having a gaggle of Slags. Appalling puns will be mandatory. You have been warned.

Let's be honest, it's been too damn hot to blog. Norfolk was blessed with occasional internet connectivity and tons of good beer, so I was busy sampling the latter whilst not giving a fig about the former. All the beery details will be revealed through the week, including;

- why cider is ten times better than beer as a lunchtime drink
- why some microbrewers in the county are missing a trick when it comes to selling bottles
- how fresh beer and fresh food, both local, is an ideal combination
- how reduced opening hours restrict topering at lunchtime

But I can find the time to write a few words now about beer and cider buying. Norfolk is well catered for with outlets ranging from the brewer's doorstep to the largest store in Britain. From places such as Walsingham Farms Shop, the Real Ale Shop, Whin Hill Cider, the Norfolk Show and Beers of Europe, I've picked up several dozen bottles in the last week. They range from local microbrewers through to US and continental fayre. Here's what I'm hoping the highlights will be:


An eclectic selection of Norfolk ales including some light fruity numbers from Humpty Dumpty and a couple of IPAs by Grain and Fox.


These two will be winging their way to Sheffield in acouple of weeks for the ratebeer.com European Summer Gathering. Artic Ale from Elvenden is a recreation of a Samuel Allsop beer brewed for sailors undertaking artic expeditions in the ninteenth century (there's a useful potted history here and an article by Roger Protz on his blog). Wagtail's Black Beauty Coffee Porter uses Kenyan coffee beans to add another dimension to an already-tasty beer.


We may be just out of a heatwave, but I'm always on the lookout for those bottles with which I'll while away the winter evenings. These two should be good; Brewdog's Paradox Islay I've had a few times already, so I'm already looking forward to tasting it alongside Harviestoun's legendary Ola Dubh.



And these just looked like fun; the Crouch Vale Amarillo I've had several times before on cask, so I'll be interested to see if it maintains that hop intensity once bottle. As for the De Molen, it's not a brewery I'm familiar with but I'm always prepared to take a punt on something new. I just need to find a few more Amarillo-heavy beers for a proper hop-off one weekend.

So, there you go. I'm off for a quick kip before I raid the fridge for a few US beers; it is Independence Day, after all...

First day of a Norfolk holiday today, with posts here as and when tinternet connection holds up. Most of the afternoon was spent outside the Bull in Little Walsingham, pints of Aspalls cider (in an impressive looking glass) to drown my sorrows as the Lions lost the decisive test against the Boks. With a fair amount of fizz and no tacky aftertaste, Aspalls was a refreshing change from the usual Woodfordes/Adnams fayre that I'm used to round here.

Then, a long linger this evening by a ford over the river Stiffkey; just me, a couple of hares, a clutch of long-tailed tits, half a dozen ducklings with mother, Pete Brown's book 'Hops & Glory' and a bottle of Wissey Valley Walsingham Spice. Procured from the Walsingham Farm Shop, it's a gentle spiced ale with ginger and cloves adding zing to a well rounded bitter.

More waxing lyrical tomorrow, last orders awaits ;-)