Once again BadPoo has gone on the Real Ale investigation trail – much like Dustin Hoffman (short, dark hair, writing in italics, Richard) and Robert Redford (tall, ginger, Matt) in ‘All The President’s Men’ – to investigate the burning issues at the heart of the beer-quaffing community. This week’s fearless expose: what’s Lytham like for a session?

Our guide for the day’s activities would be a leaflet printed for the 2008 Lytham Beer Festival which suggests an Ale Trail round the place – intriguingly highlighting many features in the listed pubs and mostly seeming to focus on a) whether the establishments have hardwood floors and b) the prevelance of ‘raised seating areas’. Obviously, consumption at altitude and an ease of brushing is what really matters to the drinkers in this posh land between Preston and Blackpool.

The original plan was simple – get into Lytham at about 11.20 then have a bit of a wander around to get to know the place while we wait for the pubs to open. This plan was immediately spoiled/improved by the Station Tavern already being open as we step off the platform. Now, chances are you’ve porbably been to plenty of pubs that were built next to a station or, indeed, in a little part of the station but Lytham goes one better. The Station Tavern is the station. All of it. Clearly there’s no need for a ticket office and a waiting area in this town any more so they’ve replaced the lot with a spacious pub.

The Station Tavern- enough to make you want to lick Dr Beeching's face

It’s quiet when we get there and, disappointingly, the only ales on offer are Deuchars IPA and Theakstons Mild which at least represents a safe start to the day. With a couple of pints of the Scottish stuff on the go, it’s time for us to settle in with a titanic tussle on the pool table (Richard on the black) and, with this being one of those places that has a music channel on the widescreens, the first heated debate of the day unfolds as an attempt is made to categorise the music of the Black Eyed Peas (manufactured pop vs opportunistic genre chancers vs the Fugees but more Euro-dance). This proves frustratingly inconclusive but, our hearts lifted by what is a very nice opening place to drink, it’s on to the next pub.

[In an attempt at a spot of freestyle beer reportage, Richard now takes the writing reins.] Armed with nothing but an A5 pamphlet and a burning desire to quaff ale, we moved on from the Tavern to The Hastings, only a few minutes walk around the corner. This is an imposing building, looking like the backdrop for an am-dram about a Victorian murder. Large wooden benches litter the front yard until you hit the steps up into the building, which is when you realise that if a Victorian were to be murdered in here he’d have to have had a soft spot for olives and houmous. Most telling of all is the quote on their website: “Hastings restaurant in central Lytham is both inclusive and exclusive.” I think that essentially means they just want everybody’s money.

Despite the different colours, both of these beers taste of hair.

We tried a pint each of Hastings Bitter and Lancaster Blonde. The Lancaster Brewery should be noted for their superbly simplistic naming convention – blonde,black, ruby and so on. Unfortunately both beers tasted of nothing much at all. The Bitter had a hint of hair to it, while the Blonde reminded me of one of those posh bottles of water you get that taste very vaguely of some kind of generic fruit. I could have drunk four pints of this in an hour and thought it was tap water.

Fortunately, it was a glorious day in Lytham and we took full advantage by sitting outside in the blazing sun. Old dears met up for lunch, debonair elderly gentlemen strolled by with a wave and a smile, and we discussed the pro’s and con’s of the European football fixture system. Pints finished, on we moved.

The County Hotel is a bit of what we’d term a plastic pub (generic menus bellowing ’2 for £10!’ at you, numbered tables, that kind of thing) but there’s plenty of nice raised seating areas and a couple of intriguing beers available on the bar. We have a pop at the Amber from the local Lytham Brewery and the much further travelled Golden Hind from the Coastal Brewery in Cornwall. The Lytham beer is all very nice and pleasant but the Cornish tipple is the frankly extraordinary taste of insanity in a glass. Contrasting both sweet, biscuity flavours and odd, plant-based notes it’s bizarrely similar (we imagine) to eating a pudding made entirely out of leaves. Wierd.

After this there’s a brief inerlude for some fish and chips on the seafront. The food was bought from Seniors Fish Bar which is on the main high street and should really have a stamp dedicated in it’s honour. It’s that good. Even with the normal 20% taste bonus that fish and chips get from being eaten by the sea, it’s clear to see that the batter is light and crispy, the fish is moist and chunky and the chips are massive and golden. This is as close as eating battered, fried animals gets to being a spiritual experience. The first few drinks are duly soaked up and it’s on to the next pub.

A couple of clowns in the Clifton Arms, looking truly paggered.

Heading back from the sea front across the wide grassy patch between there and town, it seemed sensible to make our next port of call the Clifton Arms Hotel. There are instant images of Poirot and Miss Marple, of a bygone age when the gentry strolled along the sea front arm in arm, hotel porters were murdered in lifts and half of the population lived in grinding poverty. Simple times.

Taking a seat at the bar, staffed by a well-spoken continental barman in the true vein of Poirot, we tried a half of Titanic’s Clifton Arms and a half of Festival Amber. The brew made specially for the hotel was like a poorly administered but ultimately successful sex act. As Matt spoke those words, the well-spoken heavily-made up table of MILFs to our side gave more than one glance our way – presumably a show of interest in a four-way sex act. I found the Amber to be yet another inoffensive, bland beer – not bad in any way, shape or form, but totally unremarkable and without merit. As the beers were quaffed conversation turned back to Poirot and the QCU (Quaint Crimes Unit) was born – two elite coppers running their own department, dealing solely with quaint crimes. The victims must be poor, the villains must be dastardly, and we must be in the pub drinking real ale for 50 minutes until the answer finally dawns on us.

“Bloody hell, I tell you, it’s got me stumped this one.”
“Aye, it bloody has that. Another round?”
“Aye, why not. A pint of Directors and a pint of Did It For The Insurance please.”
*slowly turn heads to look at each other*

With the QCU born, we moved on.

Beer goggles.

Next, the Mother Lode. Actually, it’s called The Taps but dear Christ this place is heaven for the ale drinker. Fittingly, it would appear to have won more awards than Ricky Gervias did for The Office. An executive decision is called for and we decide to stay here for a couple- first round up is Thatcher’s Somerset Scrumpy and Shropshire Gold from the Salopian Brewery. The scrumps is, simply, scrumpalicious; a little bit tart, a little bit sweet, a little bit bitter and supremely refreshing. On a day as unseasonally warm as this one was, I could easily have fallen into the scrumpy trap I’ve mentioned before and sunk pint after quenching pint of this 6% stuff until my head started spinning without ever really noticing anything was up. The Shropshire Gold meanwhile, continues our disappointing run of beers that don’t really taste of much.

Moving outside into the covered L-shaped yard at the back, we tried another Salopian brew, this time Darwin’s Engine. It was treacly, like being forced to suck on a lump of the foul sugary objects pensioners survive off when their digestive systems give up the fight and anything more solid than watered-down Smash presents a challenge. There were hints of peanut brittle, again, a sweet and heavy taste. Matt tried a Funnel Blower from Box Steam brewery, which had a roasted chocolate taste like being landed on by a 14-ton Malteser.

Time for a pint on Lytham’s seafront next at the Queen’s Hotel. From our vantage point in the front beer garden we can gaze upon a heart-warmingly British scene stretched out across the town’s lovely green. Gaggles of teenagers lol about necking Magners; shirtless men play football to impress dis-interested ladies who are, curiously, all dressed in summery outfits apart from the Arctic beating warmth of Ugg boots; the guests of a wedding wander past toasting the luck that the couple have got with the weather; dogs are walked, joggers jog, the beer garden is bustling.

Richard gets stuck into some Theakston’s Black Bull which he describes as smelling like beer did before you’ve drunk beer for the first time and tasting nice and malty- good in most circumstances but like a Mardi Gras of taste compared to most of the stuff we’ve drunk today. I, meanwhile, have gone for a wheat beer- Flying Dutchman from Caledonian though, yet again, the taste is slight. At best, this is a beer that’s been breifly shown a picture of wheat and asked to describe it some weeks later.

Next stop was the Ship & Royal, a pub which in a trillion years time when an as-yet unknown species rediscovers the ashes of humanity, the Encyclopaedia Galactica will feature a photo of under the section “UK chain pubs of the early 2000s”. It’s all there: lightly varnished wood, mirrors on every wall, a carpet that clearly looked astonishing when it was first laid but has since been trampled into submission by the endless pattering of pensioners and children throwing food around. The beers were disappointing: we didn’t catch the names of the two unusual ones but noted that Directors and Bombardier were the two standards. Mine tasted like walking into a freshly-painted room: exhilerating and fresh at first, but then slightly nauseating when you breath in too deeply. Matt’s was a Hobnob in liquid form.

Our visits were too early and late in the trip for food, but maybe next time...

Finally (apart from a cheeky there’s-15-minutes-till-the-train-comes-what-should-we-do? short in the Station Tavern) there’s a return to the posh confines of The Hastings Bistro for a couple more of their Moorhouse beers- Blonde Witch and Pendle Witches Brew. The former is alluringly described by Richard as ‘like a Twix’ while the former gives me a nice hint of honey. Both of these are refreshing but weigh in at over 5% so, much like the Jaipur and Kipling from Thornbridge, these have to now be officially labelled as BadPoo Danger Beers- and heartily deserving of the award they are too.

And from there it was a few seconds walk round the corner and a minute’s wait for the train home. It had been another classic day on the sauce in the vein of the Rail Ale Trail – civilized, gentlemanly and with some beers that make your eyes bleed in anticipation. Lytham gets a solid thumbs up for a few reasons – it’s easy to get to from anywhere near Preston, in theory as far East as York and Scarborough on the transpennine line. The pubs we visited were all in a few minutes walk of each other, roughly fitting into a small circle no more than half a mile across. Add to this the Victorian-esque splendour of Lytham itself, on a sunny day, and it gets a BadPoo silver medal.

Black Bull · Caledonian · CAMRA · Clifton Arms Hotel · Coastal brewery · Deuchars · Fylde · Golden Hind · IPA · Lancaster Blonde · Lytham · Lytham brewery · Mild · Moorhouses · Quaint Crimes Unit · Queen's Hotel · Salopian brewery · Seniors Fish Bar · Ship & Royal · Shropshire Gold · Somerset Scrumpy · Station Tavern · Thatchers · The County Hotel · The Hastings · The Taps · Theakstons

I recently spent the weekend in Kirkby Lonsdale and quickly became aware of the many reasons that house prices there are as high as they are. Firstly, it’s an undoubtedly lovely looking place- all narrow lanes and old stone buildings. It’s also handily situated just few miles from the M6 and contains one of the world’s great cheese shops, a similarly magnificent butchers and even an old-school sweet shop. But, and this is the most important factor of all, it’s got brilliant pubs. Lots and lots of brilliant pubs.

Oddly, despite this plethora of magnificent ale houses, there’s no official Kirkby Lonsdale ale trail as far as I can work out, possibly owing to the fact that the 7 town centre establishments detailed later are all within about a 3 minute walk of each other.  Truly, this is heaven.

Before we get to the Kirkby Lonsdale pubs though, my recent drinking excursion around the area began with a few places in the surrounding districts. First up was The Marton Arms Hotel in Ingelton which came extremely close to becoming the first, last and only pub of the day. It had 7 beers on at the time- plus Old Rosie Scrumpy, a personal favourite- as well as a lovely spacious bar area with low, snug, beamed ceilings. So far, so nice. But it also had whiskeys. Many whiskeys. 290 whiskeys (their ultimate aim is to have one for every day of the year- at which point I’ll take up assassination or male prostitution in order to have enough money to stay in the Marton Arms’ accomodation for 365 nights). Temptation was, as ever, difficult to resist and the call to move on to the next pub was only heeded as it was still just 12.30pm and a little bit early in the day to embark on a full-blown single malt session.

The Marton Arms- where I might go to die if ever I have to pick somewhere

Next up, slap bang in the middle of not very much, is the Old Hill Inn which claims to be in Chapel-le-Dale but is actually on the B6255 surrounded by lots of craggy hills. Just after White Scar Caves. In the cosy pub itself there’s the definite feel that it should be snowing outside with no chance of a let up in the next week to really get the best feel out of the place with it’s dark wood and roaring fires. We, meanwhile, have to make do with mild drizzle. 4 real ales were on at the time and Aviator from the nearby Dent brewery was the chosen tipple. Very nice and malty it was too and certainly helped clear the mind of the recent anti-Dent propaganda heard the previous night in Kirkby Lonsdale Rugby Club (basis of propaganda- everyone from Dent is gay because Dent rhymes with ‘bent’. This is what passes for humour in rugby clubs.)

The Old Hill Inn- exactly how old the hill is was never made clear

To the village of Barbon next for the simply-monikered Barbon Inn. As nice as this place is, and as revelatory as it is to discover that Tetley Green Shoots is the first known example of an interesting pint from that blandest of brewers, it’s clearly one of those establishments that makes it’s money on the food and so more than three quarters of the building on this quiet Saturday mid-afternoon, is dedicated to empty tables while the band of drinkers are crammed into a small bar area. There’s plenty of places that do this when it couldn’t possibly be too much of a hassle to make a place a little more accomodating for drinkers away from meal time. Then we wouldn’t feel resented on suspicion of being too poor to stump up for a risotto.

Following on from this, we headed to the Pheasant Inn in Casterton for which I made absolutely no notes so it’s fair to say it was probably a bit dull, as was the beer.

And now, to business. After ferrying the group around pubs on B-roads all day our chauffer, my missus, decides she’d like to get rid of the car and get stuck into the Bacardi. So it’s back to Kirkby Lonsdale and time for another tour of one of the finest drinking towns in the country. First up is Plato’s, which is admittedly a slightly poncey bar/restaurant but it usually has 2-3 real ales on and the food is so good it’s been known to make grown men cry.  A burger from there was recently measured in height at 14cm bottom to top.

Next it’s The King’s Arms which usually has one of the local football teams in demolishing chip butties while gazing at the big screen; with this in mind, it was the obvious place to check in with Jeff Stelling and co to watch the results come in. The ale selection here is never that great so, if you’re on an ale tour, you can easily drop this place and not miss much- though the atmosphere is always a little livelier than elsewhere in town if you fancy waking yourself up or meeting the locals (the anti-Dent propaganda here is particularly spicy).

To the Orange Tree next, via the churchyard from which you can also look upon the stonking Ruskin’s View, for a revitalising pint of Old Rosie and a little bit of Six Nations. The beer choice here is constantly changing- as often as between trips to the bar on an exciting day- though there’s always a slightly musty odour in the place. Sorry people of the Orange Tree if you’re reading this, but get a Glade Plug-In or two and you’ve got the best pub in town.

Avanti now- the second slightly poncey bar/restaurant of the day but, much like Plato’s, also a purveyor of fine real ales. The handy hint I have to give you for this place is to be in at around 5 or 6pm when, if you’re lucky, a bloke who I suspect is the landlord wanders round giving utterly gorgeous mini-steak pies or slices of garlic bread around to the customers absolutley free of charge. Consequently, this can be the only pub in Kirkby Lonsdale with anyone in it for much of the early evening- any landlords out there looking for a way to increase custom, take note.

Kirkby Lonsdale- You can't see them, but purely in the space contained within this photo are 6 superb pubs

Three pubs still to visit on this packed day and they are The Snooty Fox, the Red Dragon and the Sun Inn. It says much about Kirkby Lonsdale that these three establishments all sort of blend into the background. That’s not to say they’re bland or rubbish- they’re anything but. They are all the sort of pubs that the drinkers of most towns or villages would kill to have on their doorsteps and yet, here, they’re just part of the de rigeur trend for brilliant hostelries. That said, the Sun Inn gets a special mention for carrying Thwaites.

And so, after 14 pints and 11 pubs, it’s time to retire to the B&B for Match of the Day and a well earned sleep. If you ever do this, by the way, make sure on Sunday morning you head to the Lunesdale Bakery Tea Room where the ultimate hangover-busting breakfast can be bought, though the vegetarian options are limited. While myself and her parents got stuck into out full-Englishes the missus was grumpily munching through a meagre toasted teacake. Following on from this, all that was left to do was go and pick up the half a butchered lamb we’d won in an auction at the Rugby Club on Friday night (long story) and head back down the M6 to a land where there isn’t a great pub on every corner i.e. the rest of the world.

Crap, isn’t it?

Avanti · Barbon Inn · King's Arms · kirkby lonsdale · marton arms hotel · old hill inn · Orange Tree · Pheasant Inn · Plato's · Red Dragon · Snooty Fox · sun inn

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

For the last few years I’ve been inspired by beer writers in the way that inspiration works for me, in that I’ll think an idea is brilliant for a short while until I find something even more brilliant to become enthused about. I thus go from year to year with only vague over-arching senses of what it is I’m actually interested in spending my time doing, under which hang ever-changing ideas that have gripped me at that moment.

I suspect this type of person is roughly equal in number to the type of person whose interests give them a label – a hiker, a traveller, a womaniser – with the minority left over being that small group of people who under the greatest examination and scrutiny appear to have no discernible interests, activities or pastimes whatsoever beyond having their following day’s work lunch prepared to a strict evening timetable.

Beer writers have been inspiring me in the last few years to visit Germany. The best I’d managed until this week was a New Year trip to Cologne in 2007/08, which for all intents and purposes could have been a trip to anywhere with a collection of Irish theme bars. And so we come to December 2009 and a festive-themed trip with Phoenix Holidays to the German Christmas markets.

It’s almost a matter of pride to me to have holidays organised and information to hand plenty of time in advance, so the chaos in which this trip eventually fell into being was a first for me. I didn’t actually know where we were going until 15 hours prior to leaving. I wasn’t sure of the means of transport or when we’d get home. It wasn’t far off being the world’s crappest red letter day gift – four days in the unknown at indeterminate times.

Because of all this, the beer side of the trip fell into total neglect. I’d started out with vague hopes of landing next to an uber-brewery where buxom frauleins with pigtails merrily mixed their malt and hops as soft flakes of Alpine snow landed on their cheeks. In reality I spent 22 hours on a coach of pensionable grannies and got ein grosse bier from a stern-faced cellar-dwelling beast.

We stayed at Hotel Bach, one of what seemed like two hotels in the whole place. Now I sometimes think I have a problem because my tolerance for shit in hotels and restaurants is spectacularly high, and it’s not some faux English reserve or wanting to be polite. Unless I’m about to be poisoned by the food or contract pneumonia from the broken window, there’s not much they can do to really bother me. Have a read of those TripAdvisor reviews and you’ll see a whole menagerie of whinging arsebags, some of whom were on our trip and I discovered in real life are those people with physical incapabilities of not commenting on everything that crosses their line of sight, be it positive (rarely) or negative (overwhelmingly). If you’ve found this place because you’re wondering what Hotel Bach is like, well, take the words of my mum: it wouldn’t have been out of place the last time she visited. In the 70s. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, though, it just looks like the backing set on a Turkish pop video.

The only thing that puts a dampener on a hotel for me is if it’s got a really stinkingly piss-poor bar. A hotel bar is ultra-important in a group holiday because it’s the one obvious focal point where even my spacially-challenged dad couldn’t fail to make his way to. It’s a convenient place to meet while the ladies are finishing their hair, it’s somewhere you can grab a quick bit of food without disrupting the whole night, it’s the place you’ll doggedly insist will still be open when you’ve finally started making your way home at 3am.

Fortunately the bar at Hotel Bach isn’t too bad. The cliched bad German pop they play for the coachloads of English is tremendous, and two or three TVs sit on the walls showing Bundesliga games. Smoke lingers in the air and clings to your clothes – for the first few moments, a very strange sensation as memories from years gone by flood back. The panelling on the walls looks like a 70s Danish porn set. And while the bar is small, the lady behind there speaks good English and is pleasant.

So, what of  the beer? Well my beer experiences extended as far as “whatever beer each bar had” and by the last night when I felt as if another lager would make my head fizz open unexpectedly, “jagermeister and coke”. The latter is almost entirely to blame for the hellish journey home the next day, leaving at 8am and not arriving back at 7am the next day – 23 hours. Word to the wise – stick to two light ales the night before travelling, or you’ll feel a right daft toss.

For anyone wanting to know what Phoenix Holidays are like, well, it’s a case of you get what you pay for. All your transport and accomodation is included so once you’ve paid – just £99 each in our case for three nights – there isn’t much to worry about. The tour guides and drivers, Peter and John (where was Bjorn?), were great blokes, John in particular with his series of increasingly dire clubland jokes tagged alongside bleak, dry northern humour. On the downside, well, you’re basically on a coach for the best part of a day there and a day back so in effect you get two full days to do things. Koblenz is included on one of the coach trips but we went back the next day to look round more, and ended up finding a great rock bar.

Ultimately, this was once again nothing like the German beer trip I’m still hoping for. I do like German beers and pubs – they have a character very distinct to our own. The lesson I should learn though is that travelling to random spots of the country and hoping I’ll catch a glimpse of the full-on German beer experience just isn’t going to work. Perhaps next year I’ll find a spare week of holidays, book a flight and finally find my fraulein in the brewery.

Bad Salzig · Beers · Boppard · Germany · holidays · Hotel Bach · Koblenz · Phoenix Holidays