Traquair House Ale. An hour after drinking this, you will start to find Phil Cool funny.

Inadvertently I seem to have adopted a rural theme to my experiments in drinking. First I had my bottle of honey beer as far from civilization as I can get in one day, and now I’ve ended up sampling a bottle of lethal ale next to Lake Ullswater.

This came about quite by chance as I ended up going away for the weekend and had to come up with a plan on the fly. Drinking in isolation had been done, so there was no thought given to sailing out into the lake and sitting on a paddle boat supping. On a walk into Pooley Bridge I considered picking up a can of Stella and walking round the tourist information centre with it, but I wasn’t in the mood for a beating by a rambler. The pubs there are pleasant enough but basically nondescript, so the pints there came and went without incident.

It boiled down to the penumtimate day of my trip away when I picked up the bottle I’d end up having, a Traquair House Ale. At 7.2% it stood out amongst the other overpriced quaint ales in one of those arty deli shops that litter the Lake District – cheese for £8 a block and crackers made of rice, you know the type. Sitting among a bunch of beers which I knew would be utterly bland behind the fancy label was this, the Traquair, one of those that goes with the “less is more” ethos or, if you prefer, you don’t get as much because a half blows your head off.

I can report that this beer does indeed blow your head off. I finally ended up drinking this near the very northern tip of Lake Ullswater, on the shore adjacent to my campsite. I was sober when I got to the lake but I was most distinctly not when I left. For such a potent beer it has a very drinkable smoothness to it after the first bite so it seemed to drain from my plastic wine glass all too quickly (hey, I was camping, okay – no room for a real glass).

Lake Ullswater as the sun goes down. It was either this or the violent ale which made me feel happy.

Aided by a glass of wine as a spectacular sunset went down across the lake, I discovered that the effects of Traquair are time-delayed and thus this beer should be treated as the highest risk offender in the “Lethal Ales” category. It is easy to drink, appears not to affect you particularly for a good hour, but then crashes down upon you like a pissed Geordie staggering into his tent (there were many, many of these at Park Foot). My recollection of the end of this particular evening extends to me throwing my contact lens case across my tent in a rage, taking some peculiarly-angled photos of the people in the tent and finally collapsing prostrate in my jeans, only to awaken shivering and somewhat confused an hour or two later.

While a good night was had by all, my abiding conclusion from this beer experience was that I’m right to avoid beers over 5% whenever possible. As a rule of thumb I avoid them in pubs and this Traquair was a good reminder why. While I might try a half at a beer festival, for drinking by the side of a lake while camping I am merely inviting some seriously poor camera work, potential hypothermia and the loss of my contact lenses.

Lake District · Park Foot · Pooley Bridge · Traquair · Ullswater

Perhaps the oddest cultural movement of the last few years, aside from the popularity of books ‘written’ by Jordan or the encroaching universal sense of impending doom, is the repositioning of cider from hearty drink of rural labourers to an aspirational gourmet product with the metrosexual status previously enjoyed by things like sushi or Toni and Guy.

When you think about this, it’s a smart move by those involved. Booze has, for thousands of years, been defined along gender lines in the way perceptively identified by Al Murray’s Pub Landlord- pint for the fellas, fruit based drink for the ladies. Therefore, all booze was ultimately restricting itself to half the possible market as all women who drunk pints were eyed with the same suspicion as any bloke would be if they were spotted quaffing Bacardi. The No Man’s Land between the two was small and clearly marked ‘Shandy’.

Cider was the one drink ideally placed to appeal to both markets- as it comes in pints for the chaps but has the requisite fruit content which would attract the female drinker. (Before anyone writes in to complain about such crude stereotyping, I’m aware that this is actually nonsense and that plenty of women enjoy nothing more than a nice pint of ale. I mean they’re all weird gender-traitors but they’re out there and I’m aware of them)

So in recent times cider makers have added a few new fruits to their range (Pear! Strawberry! Pear and Strawberry!) and gone in for the kill. Possibly the most successful has been Jacques by Bulmers which comes in two flavours- ‘Fruits des bois’, which is basically French for ‘berries’ and ‘Orchard fruits’ which is English for ‘stuff that grows on trees’.

Some Jacques. Yesterday

Drinks like this are mainly aimed at the summer market so it seemed like the appropriate thing to do would be to try one in a beer garden on a hot August day. Unfortunately, this plan was scuppered by a) it not being a hot August day and b) me still being unsure what the concensus is on whether Jacques is an acceptable drink for a bloke in a Northern pub- especially the one near me where the primary activities within are discussing rugby league, cursing and sweating.

Therefore I decided to go somewhere hot and girly it up to see if this is the drink that could finally break down the gender divide and truly appeal across the sexes. It was time for a nice, steamy bath.

The drink itself is very, very fruity and clearly designed to appeal to anyone who doesn’t like an alcoholic taste in anything they drink. It’s eerily reminiscent of Apple and Blackcurrant Capri Sun which my mum always put in my packed lunch when I was going up and so lending the drink a misty-eyed, nostalgic quality as well. I’ve got to say it was absolutely lovely and, for a while, the sweetness was brilliantly refreshing in hot water.

A bath. Images of me drinking Jacques in a bath are available at www.chunky-bathers.co.uk

Then, the sweetness turned to stickiness which, combined with the dehydrating heat of the bath, unleahsed a kind of oral armageddon on my unsuspecting self. Everything in there was desperately clinging to everything else in a sort of clammy group hug between teeth, tongues and gums. It was fruity in there, sure, but also desperately uncomfortable. Imagine a tense family meal involving a teenage son’s outing that takes place on a strawberry plantation and you’ll kind of get the drift.

I desperately wanted a bitter shandy or a G&T but I soldiered on with the Jacques. The feeling of having a drink in a nice relaxing bath was actually very pleasant- a few of lifes luxuries coming together to make things a little nicer and take my mind off whatever. Unfortunately, as my cares slipped away, was forced to focus entirely on the fact that the fruit cider was trading off refreshing fruity pleasantness for the ability to swallow or produce any saliva whatsoever. An hour or so later I was both completely unwound from the bath and the alcohol as well as delrious with dehydration for pretty much the same reason.

And what of the drink itself? Does it unite the genders in the way that the marketing men clearly hope? Well, a spot of research suggests that there’s no real difference in the ability of men or women to deal with fruity booze sand-blasting all the moisture out of their gobs. Of course, this might just be a consequence of me knocking it back in a steamy bath. If you drink it somewhere that isn’t boiling hot it’s probably lovely.

So, whether or not it appeals to both boys and girls, it’s at least achieved one of it’s aims. It’s the ideal British summer drink.

The day: 6
The drink: Jacques Fruit des Bois
The place: The bath
Positives: Drinking in the bath is actually a nice way to unwind
Negatives: Dear God this stuff makes your mouth get sticky
Conclusion: Ideal drink for British summer, not ideal for hot places.

Bath · Bulmers · Cider · Fruit · Jacques

It’s time to combine drinking and video games, two of my favourite hobbies. The drink in question is that old friend Jennings’ Cumberland ale. The game in question is Mass Effect 2, a game so superbly brilliant, I’m on my second playthrough. I’m in the garage as that’s where my xbox is. It’s the sort of garage that has become part reception room (it has a carpet, or carpets to be accurate) and part storage room. It is however not the sort of garage where anything vaguely mechanical will ever happen. One of those garages. Consisting mainly of a mixture of furniture and warehouse levels of shelving, it’s become the perfect place for relaxing when the weather is bad. It also has a large fridge full of drinks. Time permitting, crap will be sorted and some sort of sofa installed. For now though I will settle for my camp chair with is surprisingly comfortable and the perfect height for the TV.

Seems it’s time to take a break from Mass Effect, I’ve written one paragraph in 90 minutes, this deserves more attention.

Now that I trust the scene is set,  I’ll move onto the beer. There’s not much you need to know about Jennings Brewery other than it’s near Cockermouth in Cumbria and they brew a good range of beer. The bottle gives little away about this drink, there’s barely any usable description, there is however a pleasant picture of a lake. Just to remind us we’re in the Lake District now. Your correspondent is a fan of the Lakes national park, having lived there and sampled many of the local ales and pubs.

Cumberland is a deep, golden beer that sits nicely on the tongue. At 4.0% it’s light enough to be enjoyed at any time of day. Like many ales it’s vastly improved by sitting in a beer garden by a lake or river. It also tastes like soil. I like a beer with hints of earth. You can almost taste the connection to the ground from which it came.  You don’t get that with mainstream lagers. Cumberland is like an old friend, it has a very nice summary taste. It has that right combination or sweetness and bitterness and works in all situations. It’s also available on tap in lots of pubs, not just in Cumbria either. It won’t stop you in your tracks and you could easily argue that it’s too much of a ‘safe’ beer to be worth a look at. For me though this still ticks enough boxes  to be worth a purchase.

As for drinking in the garage? That added nothing to the experience. I’d much rather have been in the shed but Matt already claimed that.

The day: 5
The drink: Jennings Cumberland
The place: The garage
Positives: Beer + Xbox make for many a great night. This beer was also used recently in a steak and ale pie to great success.
Negatives: Drinking in the garage is boring.
Conclusion: Good beer, dull location. Don’t drink in the garage on your own.

Beers · Cumberland · garage · Jennings

Edit. This review has become a comedy of errors. I forgot to make any notes while drinking Marston’s Old Empire apart it being ‘pleasant if a little heavy’. This clearly doesn’t constitute a decent review so it’s Shepherd Neame’s 1698 instead. If you’re wondering why day 4 comes after day 6, it’s because after drafting this review, the drink continued to flow and this was left behind. Apologies.

Let’s set the scene, it’s nearly the middle of August, the rain/sun battle is currently being won by the big ball of gas in the sky, it’s a little breezy. Ideally I’d be by a canal/river/lake but those are a tad too far away. I’ll settle for the soothing sounds of next door’s water feature. Also it’s that sort of early afternoon sun that although still warm, makes it very difficult to see what I’m typing. You get the picture.

On the with drink. First impressions are ok, the bottle proclaims 300 years of brewing since 1698, it’s now 2010. I presume they either took 12 years off (maybe for wars) or they just don’t want to reprint the labels. Either way the bottle is presented with a simple blue label as we all associate Kent with being blue (don’t we?) There’s a lot of love for Kent with this drink, the neck label stating that Faversham is the ‘market town of kings’. So now we know where to find royalty of a Sunday morning. This must be in the way the Altrincham is the market town of footballers. There’s an entire evening’s worth of reading on the back, a bit more than my liking so I’ll save time by mentioning CAMRA says this is REAL ALE. There’s a picture and everything.

Existential crisis over it’s time for tasting. There’s naff all aroma to this, if I plunge my nose right into the glass, I can pick up enough scent to confirm it is in fact a beer. But that’s all. There’s a deep honey/red colour to the drink. Which is nice, it looks like it should contain some flavour.

Hang on, just spotted a label which reads ‘protected geographical indication’. Answers on a postcard.

The deep colour does well to indicate the deep flavours and you can certainly taste the 6.5%. I like a drink I can actually taste but this sits at the back of the throat for a while, it’s very heavy. Hops are added to the mix three times during the brewing process and I think this is at least once too many. There’s a heavy presence of toffee in the taste which makes the drink pretty damn quaffable. This is certainly a session beer. With it’s respectable percentage, it needs to go on the ‘danger beer’ watch list. This is certainly as dangerous as Blonde Witch. You may be thinking this is a review of contradictions, and you’d be right. I like this beer but right now if someone offered me one, I’d decline. Wrong time of year. Ask me in a few months and I’ll bite your hand off.

The day: 4.
The beer: 1698, 500ml, about 6.85% ABV.
The place: Back garden, Merseyside.
Positives: It’s a nice beer for a certain occasion.
Negatives: That certain occasion isn’t a warm Summer evening, the heaviness restricts when this can sensibly be drunk. Certainly a session beer, I’ll definitely come back to this around October but not before, and not when I fancy ‘just the one’.

P.S. I think we should call this challenge the Drinks 30/30. Much snappier.

No tags

The current motto for Hobgoblin is “What’s the matter Lagerboy, afraid you might taste something?”; which roughly translates to “Come and ‘ave a go; if ya think yur ‘ard enuff!”. Fighting talk for a fighting beer; the campaign featuring this slogan was labled as “offensive and agressive”; but then the only people who should be defensive about beer are alcoholics and Guardian readers.

This of course brings me on neatly to the location. Nowhere better to consume this fighting beer than Norath on my alter ego so I headed off to my bar to check out the supply of this heady brew.

Good news; the barmaid had it in! So whilst I waited for the wench to dig out this beverage I reviewed the necessary equipment for fighting dragons.

• 1 mythically enchanted sword, sharp enough to shave with? CHECK!
• 1 set of plate armour able to withstand the hottest dragon fire ? CHECK!
• 1 specially hardened shield; capable of deflecting a dragons feeble attempts to disembowel me? CHECK!
• 1 solidly built helmet with cool wings on? CHECK!
• 1 stein with spill-proof anti-damage dragon killing beer? CHECK!

Obviously I had to test this beer under the harshest of conditions and that meant fighting a dragon. Thankfully I knew of one and buoyed on by the fighting talk on the side of bottle I was easily able to attract the attention of one Waansu; somewhat cranky after just recently been freed from Perah’Celsis’ Laboratory where he was used as a experimental guinea pig.

Don’t worry; he was evil. The fact his horde was full of gold coins and contained many magical items never came into the discussion when my guild choose this target to protect the weak and defenceless of Norath.

Cracking open the bottle to empty into my spill proof stein wasn’t as easy as you might think. Perhaps I should have prepared this beer before attacking the dragon but the dragon’s claws offered a surprisingly efficient alternative to the humble bottle opener.

The first swig held nothing back however at assaulted the taste buds with a rage that told you. It was here and it was going to stay; similar in fact to when I took down one of the wings of Waansu making him unable to fly away. We were both in it for the long haul and no-one would be leaving until a dragon was dead and my beer was finished!

After a while it was easy to settle into the rhythm hack slash duck and swig. Each subsequent swig not as brutal as the first but the flavours were still as strong as my sword arm. This is certainly not a drink for the weak.

There is a certain sense of needing to take a moment every time you take a swig, this beer cannot be ignored and even if you attempt to slake that thirst in the midst of battle it wil drive back home how much flavour it has bring you sharply away from the important matter of dragon killing to the beer itself.

Of course as with everything it must end and as the mighty dragon finally succumbed, I drained my stein in victory before setting about with avengence at its horde.As my guild were recuperating at the bar I returned the empty bottle to the barmaid and proceeded to give my verdict.

The day: 3.
The beer: Hobgobblin Ale, 500ml, about 4.8% ABV.
The place: Norath, Perah’Celsis’ Abominable Laboratory
Positives: Certainly a fighting beer and doesn’t hold back on the flavours; easy to open top even in the midst of battle.
Negatives: Certainly not a quaffing ale for celebration the almost over powering flavours need to be savoured . Does not go well with snacks and there is difficulty in drinking it with a helmet on.
Conclusion: It claims its a fighting beer but in the heat of battle a more refreshing ale is required. Ironically the fighting beer… is best enjoyed in a warm inn room at the fire. A very good beer but a beer which takes all of you to enjoy it.

ale · beer · dragon · eq2 · fighting · norath

Does anyone drink supermarket own-brand booze? I ask because it seems there are certain products where people just aren’t willing to buy the stuff made by the shops themselves, who cobble together their own version of the leading brands and sell them a little bit cheaper. Baked beans, for example are a no-go; as is cereal. This is not to even mention the crimes committed by Asda and Tesco in the name of my beloved chocolate digestives.

And alcohol is another one of those areas where own brand products are to be absolutely avoided unless at gunpoint at the very least. Once, in a week at University close to the end of term and therefore with the student loan already well burnt through, I attempted to take a swing at getting drunk on Tesco bitter. It was beyond awful. One of the people I was with stated that it tasted of nothing. Wrong. It tasted of shame.

But then we come to the Co-op who have taken a different, cleverer turn in this area. Their own brand ales are brewed for them by such folk as Thwaites and Freeminer and are therefore at least attempting to get on the right side of lovely- not entirely successful if Richard’s lonesome experience yesterday is anything to go by. Today, I’m turning my attention to their cider and drinking it in my garden shed.

Here’s why: the Co-Operative has always tried to inhabit the notions of working people joining together in collective endeavours for the benefit of all. And where do men go to do their finest work? In the shed. Their beloved sheds. Women don’t have this association with sheds but the world of cider is making it’s own strides to address issues of gender roles in contemporary society. I’ll get to that in a few days time.

For now though, to the shed and to the drink.

The cider in the shed. Accompanied by genuine sense of homecoming.

Straight off the bat, it’s refreshing- tingly rather that fizzy, a little bit sharp and then a sour kick right at the death. It kind of occupies the middle ground between mass produced ciders and traditional scrumpies- as indicated with it’s strength of 6% which will certainly do the job but is nowhere near the mind-bending potency of the cloudier, flatter stuff. This makes it all the better for sloshing back while sheltering in the garden shed from a minor summer rainstorm which is exactly how I came to be drinking this particular bottle. I’d been dimly aware of approaching rain and decided to get a move on give the lawn a much-needed mow ASAP before it came. However, by the time I’d untangled the extension cord- which had been tidily rolled up with absolute precision by myself a month earlier and had remained utterly untouched since and yet STILL came out resembling something MC Esher would draw while pissed- the clouds had gone that heavy threatening grey shade which is the official colour of August in Britain. I charged around the lawn at speed but was still caught short by the weather- meaning I had to immediately fling the extension cable into the shed (literally undoing all the good work I’d done untangling it moments before) and dive in for cover after it.

This left me sweaty, angry and looking at a lawn which was only cut on one side and therefore appearing to do an impression of Phil Oakey from the Human League. So I cracked open the bottle and then it hit me; don’t ask me how it does it but cider is the taste of male bonhomie and endeavour. By the way, when I say ‘cider’ I mean the proper stuff, not Strongbow which is the taste of truants in a bus shelter.

Somehow the sweetness of the apple and the sourness from the fermentation just gives it the flavour of that collective working spirit I mentioned earlier that so sums up both the Co-op and the garden shed. I pondered this for a while as I drained the bottle and the rain passed before, emboldened by now following in the drinking tradition of good, honest outdoor toil, I set back to finish mowing the rest of the lawn.

Unfortunately, I forgot to consider the fact it had been raining so the wet grass of the lawn clogged up the mower and the fact I’d had a bit of a drink meant that a certain amount of precision was removed from my grass cutting technique. Soon the garden was no longer impersonating Phil Oakey and had instead moved on to a passing resemblance to the lead singer of A Flock of Seagulls.

And so, by drinking this cider in the shed I’d learned two things. I’d learned how this drink, in this place, summed up the spirit of good British graft in the fields. And, after knocking it back, I’d learned why we never really manage to get anything much done anymore.

The day: 2.
The drink: Co-op Tillington Hills Premium Cider, 6%
The place: My garden shed
Positives: Chimed in with the heart of British arable workers and their enduring spirit via a very nice and drinkable cider.
Negatives: My lawn is now a right mess, the extension cable’s all tangled up again.
Conclusion: Drink in a shed  by all means.  Just do the gardening first.

Cider · Co-Op · freeminer · Garden shed · Thwaites

Happy coincidences are one of life’s small, unappreciated pleasures, usually drowned out by people screeching about unhappy coincidences: buses coming in threes, running into an ex with a year-long grudge against you, discovering that your girlfriend is just as submissive in the bedroom as you are so your soul is crushed as you realise the rest of your sexual life story will consist of two people laid politely asking if it’s okay to timidly fondle. That kind of thing.

To counteract this wall of whinging I’ll tell you the tale of how today’s challenge came together, and it’s a tale of a happy coincidence. When we came up with the idea for this, one of my first ideas was to have a drink away from people, out of the normal settings, somewhere very much on my own.

The aim was to discover what it feels like to have a beer when you’re truly alone. Sitting in an empty bar in the afternoon is one thing, drinking at home alone is another, but being miles from the nearest human being while you have a beer? That’s something I’d never done. Visions of Ranulph Fiennes gulping down a can of Tennants at 19,000 feet flashed before my eyes. I’m sure Ellen MacArthur kept a sly quart of gin tucked away somewhere as she bounded across the Pacific. I could be next. The only problem is I only had one day to do it.

So how far from mankind could I get in one day? I mused over wandering up to Darwen Tower, or finding a gym in a Scottish town. Happy coincidence saved me from this choice when I realised that on the weekend we’d be starting this challenge, I’d already organised going to Sheffield and I had a day to spare in the area. You only have to go five miles out of the centre to find yourself in the Peak District. For mile upon mile, up there you’re in splendid isolation.

Whipping out the virtual map, it became clear that with a good few hours walking I could be atop a hill in the back of beyond with the only other humans in range being other idiots going to desperate lengths to drink in solitude. And so off to the shores of Redmires Reservoir I went. 13 mostly circular miles to get there, 1,073 feet in the sky, 5 pints on the way and 2 drought-stricken puddles to look at when I got there.

As an aside, the walk up the hill from the west to reach this point was unwittingly one of the best choices I’ve made for a walk in a long time, as the path cuts across the ridge of a valley and lets you see miles of forest. The weather was kind to me which was fortunate as I’d gone dressed like one of the halfwits that Michael Burke casually slags off on 999 for attempting a hill walk dressed like a bedraggled Ian Brown.

Co-Op Honey Ale, a beer which resembles honey much as Stalin resembles compassion.

My beer of choice was a honey ale I’d picked up on a hasty trip around a Sheffield city centre Co-Op. Finding a bench to plonk myself down on, a curious blend of exhileration and exhaustion swept over me as I realised that after four hours I’d finally reached my destination, but I’d stopped for five pints on the way and that isn’t as effective as Lucozade Sport at keeping you going. Sitting back, I prised off the bottle cap with my pen knife, a fact which would shortly prove to be the turning point between the optimism and energy of a steady march up a beautiful English country hill, into a period of bleak depression touching upon thoughts of suicide and the nature of humanity.

All shall be explained in due course, of course, but at this stage my only thoughts were of the beer. I placed the pen knife on the wooden bench and watched as a small mound of foam crept from the bottle, almost begging to be let out. When it seemed to have settled, I took the bottle in my hand and went for the smell. There was none, which made me feel like a man who’d picked up a rock and put it to his nose, which in turn made me instinctively glance sideways to see if anyone had caught me in this absurd act. The rational brain kicked back in and I put the bottle back down for a moment’s more contemplation and a brief photoshoot.

Co-Op honey ale by the reservoir. This felt as effected as me walking round Cambridge with a soft woolen wraparound scarf.

Redmires Reservoir, Yorkshire's third smallest puddle.

Camera work complete, I stretched my weary legs out and took in the reservoir in front of me. Still, serene and quite beautiful, soft arrows rippling across now and then as fish go about their business. A bird hovers high above, searching for a flicker of movement in the fields below. No joy – it sails off into the distance to try its luck elsewhere. A cloud darkens the skies and I’m reminded that I’m here to drink this beer and go home. Absent-mindedly I take a swig but I’m still thinking about that bird and when I listen, the silence has almost become audible. The only distraction from the ceaseless whirring of my thoughts is that bird, and I can’t let it go. As the whirring grows louder I take another swig but it’s tasteless, a slight fizz the only thing worthy of note. My hands grow restless and I pick up the pen knife, flicking out the blades and twisting them around my fingers.

That’s when I notice the people coming up close to my left. Two people, old, ramblers. How they got so close in this silence I’ll never know. I don’t feel the need to act out everything going through my head so I didn’t bother looking right at them; I just kept staring ahead at the silent water. Out of the corners of my eyes I saw them come closer at a sturdy pace, until they neared and the pace slowed to a dawdle. Slowly, so slowly I almost had to look up, they passed in front of me, only twenty feet later picking up their pace again. Under a cloud of melancholy my head dropped, and then I saw why they had slown: idly cavorting the pen knife blade around my hands, I’d ended with it standing across the veins of my left wrist.

Mortified at the alarm I must have caused, I made an elaborate show of doing normal things: standing up to admire the view like I was on the front of the Titanic with Kate Winslet, rooting through my bag with a series of epileptic arm gestures like I’d lost my wedding ring down there, taking a hearty gulp of my beer and making the kind of absurd aaaaahh!!!-that-was-good sound that is only ever actually done by stereotyped men on beer adverts. As they became specks on the horizon I hope those poor pensioners got the message I wasn’t suicidal, because I felt morbid shame for putting that worry into their minds.

Jack Turner's memorial plaque. The feeling of futility I felt while gazing upon this is best likened to the eternal sorrow of seeing an X-Factor audience clap.

Sitting back once again, the melancholy twisted into gloom as the ceaseless whirring became a deafening din in my head. Beer, so often the anaesthetic that quietens the racket, was pulling that two-faced trick it has of occasionally contributing to it. In an attempt to distract myself I turned to look at the forest behind me and ended up staring at Jack Turner’s memorial plaque. Jack (1924-2001) was clearly the kind of man who would inspire those he left behind to dedicate a bench with a view to him. I think, since I was about 13 and began to think like an adult, that has been my ultimate goal in life: I’d like to be a man who is remembered with a bench plaque. The silent dignity of it touches me somehow, and I spent a good ten minutes with nothing else on my mind apart from Jack Turner.

Time passed, and I began to think about the situation. I am not normally this morbidly contemplative of hovering birds and bench plaques. I normally think about these things and then frame them within an optimistic world view that gets me through the days. It’s only when I drink alone that my mind turns to such things. I began to wonder: if drinking to these absolute excesses of solitude takes me to the excesses of pain, doesn’t drinking on my own in moderation make me moderately miserable when I otherwise wouldn’t be? I emptied the bottle and placed it back in my bag as the last lingering thoughts of doing a Reggie Perrin and strolling into the water crossed my mind. With a heavy heart, but with a lesson learned, I stood, took my bag and began the walk home.

The day: 1.
The beer: Co-op honey ale, 500ml, about 4.5% ABV.
The place: Redmires Reservoir, altitude 1,073 feet, no sentient species within 2.5 miles except alarmed pensioners.
Positives: discovered the beauty of wilderness; drank with the certainty no-one could put Celine Dion on the jukebox; further developed my imaginary friendship with Ray Mears.
Negatives: distressed pensioners by appearing suicidal; was unable to quieten the ceaseless whirring in my head with beer; missed the first Soccer Saturday of the season.
Conclusion: if drinking in splendid isolation, DO take a solar-powered radio, DO NOT take a pen knife.

30 days · Co-Op honey ale · drinking alone · gloom · Redmires Reservoir · Sheffield

Here at BadPoo Towers, we’re on a never ending quest to understand beer, and it seems there’s a hell of a lot for us to get our heads around. Luckily, there appears to be plenty of other people on the journey with us judging by the number of blogs and fanzines out there dedicated to the subject. These tend to fall into two categories:

a) Blogs and articles featuring incredibly precise descriptions of ales, often breaking down the constitutent parts of hops, barley, oats, whatever in forensic detail and leaving everyone none the wiser as to what it’s actually like to drink the damn stuff. Let me put it this way; all matter in the universe is made up of elements, including humans who are capable of intense and complex emotions and feelings. But would you look at the periodic table in an effort to understand something like love? No, you wouldn’t. You’d listen to ‘God Only Knows’ instead.

Or there’s:

b) Whimsical reportage of pub crawls, lounge bars and microbreweries where explanantions of what a beer is like to drink are only as important as the surroundings in which they are drunk. Regular readers round here will notice that this is the sort of thing we like to go in for. To get pretentious for a moment, beer is so much more than what’s in the glass.

Which isn’t to say that giving some idea of what an ale is like isn’t useful. We’ve all tried those brews that taste like they’ve been strained through an ashtray and it’s important that decent warning about such pints is disseminated as thoroughly as possible. It’s the only way they’ll learn.

Therefore, starting on Monday, we at BadPoo will fearlessly embark on a new, experimental adventure in beer reviewing. In an effort to gauge exactly what the place of the great ale is in the 21st Century we will review 30 of them in 30 days and in 30 different places. Sure we’ve all sat in front of the telly with a bottle or supped a pint in the local but what is it like to try an ale in the sacred male sanctuary of the garden shed? Why do kids drink at bus-stops? Does everyone feel just a little bit like a tramp when they drink on a train, or is it just me? Is it right for a man to drink beer in the bath? Or in bed?

All these questions and more will be answered in the next month here at badpoo.co.uk. Together, we will establish once and for all not only whether these beers are any good, but just when and where a nice, relaxing snifter can improve life no end. Or make it worse. Or make you feel like a bit like a tramp (or is that just me?)

Join us.

Join. Us.

30 days · Beers

According to horse racing people, going to The Derby doesn’t feel like going to The Derby anymore. Not since they moved to a Saturday from it’s previous long-standing slot on the first Wednesday in June. In it’s original place in the calendar, people had to take the day off work to go to Epsom for the race- it felt mischevious, it felt naughty, it felt deliciously like skiving. And now it doesn’t.

Well in the spirit of such devil-may-care bunking off, me and m’colleague Richard took this past Wednesday off work and set off to sample the Rail Ale Trail that is to be found headed out to the east of Manchester. At it’s heftiest this particular excursion can take in 8 different stops along the way between Stalybridge and Batley but only half of these paid host to us over the course of the afternoon – though another drink was tied on in Manchester at Official BadPoo Mighty Pub the City Arms Inn.

Two light ales and a debate on the merits of tiles in pubs.

Proceedings got underway at The West Riding Refreshment Room on Dewsbury station with a couple of perfect session-starting pale ales from Yorkshire’s Rooster brewery and Durham brewery‘s Magus. They both slipped down easily, light and refreshing- only serving to strengthen our belief that pale ales are the ultimate way to get a day’s session drinking underway; though this decision was only reached after lengthy and appropriately grave debate. In fact, like many of the establishments on this journey, The West Ridings is a place where a man’s conversation can turn easily to the most heightened of philosophical musings. Naturally, we choose to go on and wrestle with that most unwieldy of beasts- is tiled decoration in a pub acceptable?

This debate rattled on for so long, and we got so comfortable in the pleasant surrounds of this station bar (the food smelled particularly alluring) that we briefly forgot we were on a tight schedule and came close to missing our train. Luckily the journey from our table to the platform and onto the train took less than 10 seconds so disaster was happily averted.

Huddersfield next where, in the Head of Steam, you’ll find 4 rooms of varying decoration; including a games room, where you’ll find brilliant old-fashioned two-player arcade table machines nestled amongst the Connect 4. We take up residence on the platform side of the pub in a room clearly set up more for dining than drinking. This is a good hint at what you absolutely must do if and when you find yourself in this establishment. You must eat here.

For they serve proper chips. Big, crispy, fluffy, gorgeous, proper chips.

We both plumped for the usually safe option of a sandwich and some of those chips for some lunch as we hoped to avoid eating too much and being struck down by the dreaded affliction of PCL (Post Consumption Lethargy, acronym fans). However, owing to the size of the chips and the butties being made with the world’s fattest slices of bread, it’s a close call and we only just get away with it after wofling the nosh down.

Food and beer in the Head of Steam.

In between gorging on foody delights, we had the time to take in the decoration and a couple of pints. Decoration first, which in the room we were sat is a beguiling mixture of railway based art and promotional material for various Drinks That Time Forgot (Virgin Vodka! Carling Premier!). This is probably an attempt to differentiate themselves from most station bars which content themselves with plastering the wall with various bits of brass from engines and lots of old signs- all very pleasant and evocative but a little bit akin at times to drinking in a skip.

As for the beer – there was 11 listed to pick from and we ended up sampling Organ Grinder from the Brass Monkey Brewery as well as Whispers and Lightyear from the Glentworth Brewery who appear to name all their drinks after aspirational 80′s nightclubs. All beers were nice though, unfortunately, rushed at the death owing to The Huddersfield Dash. This is a tradition at Huddersfield where, every time I do this ale trail, I forget that the platform you arrive into Huddersfield on is not the one you leave from if you want to get to Marsden. This leads to a last-gasp charge across the station- an easy activity normally but difficult when already a few pints into a session and in the early stages of digesting those chips and that massive bread.

On to Marsden and, with a tight schedule to keep, we foresake the trek down the hill into the village itself (recommended if you have the time) and drop into the Railway which is on the station’s doorstep. This pub is not officially part of the Ale Trail- possibly owing to it being a Marston’s pub and therefore light on the independently brewed stuff. It’s a nice place though and there is a dartboard on which a quick round of 301 is despatched (no doubles to finish though, as we don’t have a spare fortnight) while we sup a Wychwood Dirty Tackle and Marston‘s Sweet Chariot- you may be able to spot a rugby theme.

A little deviation from the suggested route, but it saved time.

Game of darts over we settle down to read through Innspeak – a fine example of the magazines put together by real ale enthusiasts and usually frothing over with intriguing adverts for lovely looking pubs, notice of upcoming beer festivals, news about Debbie and Steve who’ve just refurbished the Lamb and Flag, and borderline hysterical invective against the government for whatever new law or taxes associated with drink that they’ve just come up with. These magazines are, almost without exception, brilliant and- since their written by enthusiastic amateurs rather than ego-riddled journalists- infinitely more informative than almost all other printed publications on the market. Plus, in the case of Innspeak, you get to find out about this issue’s Star at the Bar, the lovely Michaela who works at the Cross Inn, Halifax. You don’t get that in the NME.

A short stint on another train that we can watch arrive from the bar takes us to Stalybridge’s Buffet Bar and their choice of 7 ales from which we select Blair Atholl by Little Ale Cart and The North’s London Calling (or that could be the other way round, we never figured it out). Again, these are both very quaffable and it’s nice to report an entire days run without a single dodgy pint. Our conversation by this stage is hitting the ‘Hatching Mad Plans’ stage and there’s various talk of elaborate drinking holidays which’ll almost certainly never get followed up.

One of the few remaining Victorian station bars.

All this takes place surrounded by the Buffet Bar’s slightly odd decor of 70′s wood panelling and 50′s leather chairs all contained, in the bit we were sat, in a very 1990′s suburban conservatory. On the walls, meanwhile, the usual old fashioned pub paraphenalia (adverts for Martini and Bovril etc) and supplemented by a few maverick touches- like a certificate for a Domestic Millinery exam from evening classes at Ashton-Under-Lyne in March 1912.

Beyond this lies Manchester and our final drink of the day at The City Arms, but his isn’t part of the ale trail and this particular pub needs BadPoo consideration on it’s own sometime in the future rather than here.

And that was our day. I’ve done this ale trail on a weekend before where it’s so popular that the arrival at every station is marked by a mass charge to the bar by the dozens of people who’ve ended up on the same schedule as you. The descent down the hill into Marsden on these days really ought to be reclassified as an extreme sport. Far better is to skive the day off work and do it this way, on a weekday afternoon when you have have that little naughty thrill I mentioned earlier and where two men can find the time and freedom to experience 2 of the great means of opening the mind up to thought and contemplation – travel and a pint.

And where we can decide that yes, tiled decoration is acceptable in a pub.

Beers · Brass Monkey brewery · Buffet Bar · City Arms · Dewsbury · Durham brewery · Glentworth brewery · Huddersfield · Innspeak · Little Ale Cart · Manchester · Marsden · Marstons · Rail Ale Trail · Rooster brewery · Stalybridge · West Riding Refreshment Room · Wychwood