I'm beginning to think all baths were designed for midgets.

This challenge started out as a pure accident; and one I have taken a hearty liking towards. Following on From Terrance’s Sticky disaster in the bath. I decided to see if it was all beers/ciders which were going to cause issues or it was the bath in general.

Item 1: The bath is one of those weird corner baths; which as I found to my cost doesn’t allow you to fit in it whichever way you are positioned. In the end I decided on an convention lieing down position with my feet hanging over one side.

One advantage to this bath was the addition of rather large shelf next to my drinking hand so there was never any issues of bath water contamination or beery shampoo to contend with.

Drink #1: Can of Woodpecker Cider

As mentioned above this was a pure chance challenge; I decided on a whim to have the first bath in my house since I moved in; (I currently only took showers). The bath had been cleaned recently so I decided to start filling it up. However since it needs about 20min to actually fill up with sufficient water to cover my gentleman’s area I got a bit bored and opened a can of cider and wandered off to check my E-Mail.

Halfway into my second can I was caught out, and had to quickly adjust the water level to one which was slightly lower than testing an Archimedes principle. In short: I was left with half a can and a hot bath. Not wanting to waste either I lowered myself in can in hand and began to relax.

Now one disadvantage of a hot bath is you sweat a lot; you literally sit in there and “stew” great at getting you clean but can be very uncomfortable after a few min; enter the can of cheap dry cider. Wow, what a revelation! It may not have come directly out of the fridge but the can was cool and allowed me to regulate my temperature much easier and the dry taste contrasted beautifully with the hot steam.

It was savouring this that I remember reading about Terrance’s experience with Jacques in the bath and I would have to reaffirm that a “sticky” or sweet drink in such a situation would be intolerable; but a dry cold cider suddenly added to the experience of bathing rather than taking it away.

Drink #2 : Newcastle Brown Ale (Bottle)

I don't think this picture does justice to how fizzy this drink was.

Now since this is a serious experiment I could not just have one drink and be done with it so the next time I had a bath I made sure one of my favourite tipple was on hand. The taste was a perfect contrast once again so I did not imagine the first time; however; the bottle caused issues.

The narrow spout and heavy glass tended to “overfizz” the nukie at the best of times, lieing in a bath however the angle was much shallower so I managed to fizz some beer out of my nose a fair few times! This was obviously “not on”; and whilst the beer calmed down once it dipped below halfway the need to be extra careful initially put a real downer on the experience.

I would have to give points to it making you gassy. In a bathroom which echos you can get some quite spectacular belches going on; although from a pure comfort factor this obviously is not ideal.

Drink #3 : Crumton Oaks (Cider) in a pint glass

Keeping with the dry cider angle I decided to check if a simple pint glass could overcome the issues with the fizziness which can occur using bottles. Pouring the drink into a pint glass is normally the best way to drink Nukies in pubs or at home; whilst I didn’t have any to hand at the time drinking cider out of a pint glass I could at least test the principle.

Initially all was well… I had a firm grip and I could lie back savouring the heat and reach out take a drink and hardly need to open my eyes. Alas it was not perfect as I was finding to my cost. You see a bath has some degree of soap in.. and soap and glass make for a slippery surface. The pint glass was increasingly hard to hang onto -  the simple can I could crush slightly to get a better grip. The glass however was not as easy to hang onto.  To my credit there was not a single drop of spillage although it came close a few times. Once again like the Nukie I had to sit up and drink carefully… in effect ruining the experience of the bath in the first place.

And so the humble can wins out; its stackable, doesn’t take up much space and doesn’t suffer from the “soap” issue. I personally prefer a dry cider choice but bitters and ales will work just as well.

The day: 17
The drink (s): Newcastle Brown Ale, Woodpecker, Cromton Oaks Cider
The place: The Bath
Positives: The cool dryness of cider complements the bath perfectly
Negatives: Any sort of glass wear with soap can lead to bath disasters.
Conclusion: Even though the choice of a can narrows your choices; it is an experience everyone of us should enjoy at least once in our lives.

Sidenote: Having come up with the title now I have a sudden urge to get a can of Directors Bitter for my next bath….

ale · Bath · Beer festival · Crumpton Oaks · dry cider · fizz · Newcastle Brown Ale · none sticky · Woodpecker

I have been thinking a lot about the pub; or lack thereof for quite a while.

I was lucky enough to be brought up and witness the end of the pub crawl, a ritual undertaken by all walks of life up and down the country. It was a simple idea really. You come home on a Friday night after a hard week’s graft, and got ready to go out to start the weekend; there was an enjoyment in doing the simplest of things. Changing clothes to go out always had to be accompanied by some good music. Not just anything; but fist pumping back beats and catchy melodies you’ll have stuck in your head for the next hour. Your dinner was prepared quickly but it was never just reheated leftovers from Thursday… it was always something special even if it was just a trip to the chippy on your way home. As soon as you finished your private rituals you set off for the pub.

The pubs back then were laid heavy with smoke, stale beer and perpetually gloomy even though the sun had not yet set. People who ordered food in such places were looked at with disdain; this was a Friday night after all and good times should be had by all.

The first pint was always a risk… most of the time it had been in the pipes since last night so a gut wrenching sour after taste almost always accompanied it. There was no real ale… there was a choice between: bitter, lager or Guinness; all of which kind of tasted the same and you differentiated between them by the cost and alcohol percentage. Now cost, there is a touchy subject, and one I’ll return to later.

But the first pint was always a good one; no matter how sour watered down it may be. It was a symbol of breaking the tyranny of the 9-5 day and recognising you would not need to wake up early to go into work tomorrow. One by one your friends started to gather to be greeted with choruses of “hellos” or in some cases people who you have not seen for a while by cheers.

One pint became two; two became three; and invariably the subject was raised: where to next?

Nights out were never a single pub; there were several pubs; meeting different people in each one your group splitting up, merging from pub to pub. Some pubs were noted for their great jukeboxes; others for their atmosphere. Sometimes another part of our anatomy did the talking and other pubs were suggested simply because we knew other people will be there. Debates were raged over the benefits of each pub and the group flowed from one to another – driven by seemingly random impulses across town.

Towns and cities back then were heaving with revealers relishing the fact it was the weekend travelling back and forth between the many pubs which dotted our towns. I have been out recently and you no longer see the trains of people moving between pubs… just single groups here and there moving between the few pubs which remain. When I first started going out there were bouncers on most pub doors – simply to make sure the place did not become too overcrowded. This was Friday nights out on the town, every weekend; Saturday nights sometimes as well; but that never had the same “just off work feel” that the magical Friday gave.

I’m sorry that people who are turning 18 now cannot experience the pub culture and crawl; in the glimpses of young people I have seen around town these days the entire premise seems to revolve around vodka and how fast you can drink it in a trendy bar with hard lines and cold lighting. Nights drinking sterilised and chemically pure alcohol in various fizzy and fruity concoctions in a cool over-metallic environment. The weird smell of smoke machines and too much Lynx following them around all night.

You are not likely to bump into an old man at the bar who twists your ear about politics; there is no old dusty settee in the corner which had lost all its spring long ago. There is no travel between the different pubs to experience each character. There is no need. There is a bar which has the same type of people and the same layout as the last one. Always too cold; and always the same. Dozens of ramshackle little pubs with less space than an Ethiopian grain storage silo are replaced with sprawling “state of the art” and neon bars.

Have we progressed? I think not. The decent few pubs who remain are always on the verge of collapse with groups of patrons sitting in the corder mumbling in the corner about the prices of beer. When I was 18 I went out with a tenner in my pocket and it was enough for six pints of beer and either a taxi home or a kebab; and that was more than ample to have a good time.

So what does this mean for the Friday night this week?

Well I plan to have a couple of pints in the pub and go home early… perhaps picking up a few cans from the shop. There is no dancing to oasis when you are getting dressed to go out any-more; there is no changing your razor blade for a new one; and there is no more pub crawl… in fact the last pub crawl I was in involved a car… as the distances were too far to walk.

Beer festival · Blackburn · crawl · ethopia · friday · friends · night · oasis · pub · Thwaites · youth

Lytham, home of posh ladies and buildings with propellors. And a few good pubs.

I know I shouldn’t go, but I might. I know I said I’d stay in, but I won’t. I know I say every week I’ll stay off the beer, but I never do. I know when Saturday comes, I’ll wake up ready to jump on the next train to Lytham and have a look at their beer festival.

Curse you, infernal temptation. My best laid plans always crumble thanks to timing like this. It’s been too long since I’ve done a festival thanks to combination of the usual summer drought and my other holiday plans, not to mention the fact I did them nearly every weekend at the start of the year. It is such cruel timing then to throw Lytham’s beer festival right in my face on the one weekend I swore I’d stay at home and be sensible.

Enough of my cursing, anyway. From Thursday to Saturday this week, it’s the fourth Lytham beer festival. This is a wonderful little seaside town, like a Blackpool without thousands of drunk Glaswegians, chip wrappers and 2p slot machines. Myself and Matt had a day out over there earlier this year and loved the place, so the prospect of a Saturday afternoon by the sea, back at The Taps and the station bar and with a beer festival on top is very difficult to turn down.

It’s coming back into beer festival season and despite my protestations to myself that I will stay at home, I may well see you down at Lytham this Saturday.

Beer festival · Lytham · The Taps

As I’m sure you know by now, Wetherspoon’s has begun another of their real ale festivals, this year billed as “the world’s largest real ale festival featuring up to 50 ales”. Yesterday we popped along to try a few of the first ones on offer.

Good Cheer Beer and Rollercoaster - two decent, if odd, ales. GCB was the better of the two.

First up, and off to a confusing start: a pint of what we have down as Good Cheer Beer’s Pale Yorkshire Bitter, but which on reflection must actually have been a Roosters’ Good Cheer Beer. Being damn cool customers, we’re never ones to loiter at the bar and our notes are based on a quick glance at the clip as we walk past (making sure to look disinterested in all things ale in front of the barmaids). It also proved that we didn’t pay attention to the “beer festival” signs above the clip, and actually bought a beer which wasn’t part of the festival. Thus, on occasion – frequent occasion, I must admit – we end up with a sheet of notes referring to nonexistent ale which isn’t part of the festival. This would be but the first of several such foul-ups of the day.

But: on to the beer itself. Good Cheer Beer seems to be quite widely available judging by a quick search, but it’s the first time I’d tried it. It’s very light, and I thought it tasted a lot like lemonade at first until the beer flavour kicks in. It’d make a cracking pint in a beer garden after work – refreshing, easy-drinking and like drinking pop. The VK of the ale world, if you like. My drinking partner Shaky found it soft and fruity with a tang of beer to finish, a good barbecue beer and definitely 87.6% as refreshing as shandy. A thumbs-up overall, I think.

Our first round also took in what we noted down as an “Oldham Ales Rollercoaster”. Again, our note-taking skills proved as piss-poor as a quadriplegic secretary and the closest I can guess at is that this was something by the Oldham Brewery, which is just a name used by Robinsons. I can’t even say that with any conviction and I’m sure by now it’ll have sold out and been replaced. Whatever the hell it was that we drank, it had a licquorice, heavy taste which was quite off-putting at first but eventually didn’t seem too bad – I gave it a 60%. Shaky meanwhile found the name apt, as you’re unsure of what you’re tasting, being sour, sweet, dry and comforting all at once – one to enjoy, but not to cherish.

Our terrible note-taking record continued as I went to the bar for round two, the first of which I decided was Three B’s Bee In The Bonnet, which after a conversation with Gordon from the brewery transpired to be Honey Bee. Again, this beer is not even a part of the festival, so we essentially may have gone to any pub in Blackburn, drank four pints and made up some names for them. But bear with me on this one: Honey Bee is our beer of 2010 so far. It’s simply tremendous, the most drinkable pint I’ve ever come across, and that includes my affairs with that seductress Harvest Pale. The very first smell of the pint got an “ooooh” from Shaky, a man whose usual reaction is one of almost invisible indifference. There’s a sweet, almost spicy smell, which I described as like wafting a piece of lightly honeyed toast under your nose, and he called a Chinese sweet and sour. And the taste? The word “quaffable” was invented for this beer. You know those massive Americans who enter contests to neck 20 pints in five minutes? The cheating bastards are on this stuff. It’s very, very nice, nothing too intense but a smooth feeling of honey in your mouth. It leaves you with a feeling of warmth and enjoyment, and is by far my favourite beer of 2010.

Honey Bee and Lush. The former is the mightiest drink since the invention of roofs.

And so, somewhat reluctantly, to our final pint of the session, Hopstar’s Lush. These are another local brewery to us, just down the road in Darwen. I’ve enjoyed their beers in the past but the smell of this one was a bit off-putting – we thought it was somewhere between a mild cheese and a pair of wet socks on a changing room floor. Somehow, the taste is totally different – there’s a definite taste of wood, which I thought was like sucking on a piece of moss-covered bark on one of those massive cool trees in a forest-based episode of the X-Files. Shaky felt it was more like chewing on a pencil and suddenly realising you’ve crushed the lead beneath your teeth. Overall, a curious beer, drinkable but leaving you with a strange sensation.

And those were the beers that were. It was an intriguing session, mostly caused by our total inability to actually write down what we were drinking. But in the space of an hour we drank a piece of wood, had a lemonade beer, were left perplexed by a literal rollercoaster of a pint and enjoyed our champion beer of 2010 so far, the tremendous Honey Bee by Three B’s Brewery.

You try topping that, Foster-boys.

Beer festival · Beers · Good Cheer Beer · Honey Bee · Hopstar · J D Wetherspoon · Lush · Oldham Brewery · Rollercoaster · Roosters · Three B's

Drinking beer in the name of Jesus H. Amen.

Tonight is the first session of this year’s Preston Beer Festival, held at St Walburge’s church. It is not a CAMRA festival, instead being in aid of the restoration of the building which the website describes as “Preston’s architectural gem”. I envisage a dilapidated old ruin of a church, left to succumb to the elements while the Church of England sits merrily on its amassed fortunes.

I’m going over tomorrow night with my fair lady and must admit this will be my first time at this festival, which is a poor record considering it’s in its 17th year and I lived in Preston for two of them. So far this year I’ve been to fairly big festivals – the Winter fest in Manchester, Fleetwood and so on – so this should be a nice change of pace. There is something pleasant about being able to drink good beer in a quiet, yet not solitary environment; I think it’s a happy middle ground between sitting at home drinking bottles on your own and cramming yourself into a Wetherspoons on a Friday night. Clitheroe’s festival in May should be very much the same if last year is anything to go by.

I can never decide if I prefer the small or large festivals, but tomorrow evening should help me decide.

Beer festival · Beers · Clitheroe · Preston · St Walburge's Church

Wigan’s beer festival is just getting underway as I write this, and I’ll be over there tomorrow afternoon to see what it’s like these days. I haven’t been for a good six or seven years, when I went with a few of my uncles, we all fell out and ended up making a frankly bizarre attempt to con our way in with an out of date CAMRA card. That it was about 50p to get in didn’t seem to matter to us after five pints around Wigan beforehand.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a little less stupid as I’m just over for the afternoon session with my sister. Oh yes – the afternoon “quiet session”, my second favourite piece of beer terminology (behind “drinking career” but just ahead of “session beer”). Having been to quite a few afternoon sessions now, I have found that it really is quite a good description for the atmosphere, a blend of studious beer appreciation with banter without the din of a blues band in the background.

I’ll report back on how it goes, along with a look back at Wednesday’s day out with Matt along the Transpennine Real Ale Trail.

Beer festival · Beers · CAMRA · Transpennine Real Ale Trail · Wigan

Here’s a weekend to keep free: East Lancs CAMRA will again be holding a beer festival at the St Mary’s Centre in Clitheroe on May 14th and 15th 2010.

Men undertaking the noble pursuit of standing around getting pissed on a Saturday afternoon.

Last year it coincided with a 1940s theme weekend but I haven’t seen any mention of that yet so perhaps that was a one-off. Either way it’s still a decent festival for the weekend as Clitheroe’s a nice town and it’s easy to reach from anywhere on the Manchester line – you could even change at Blackburn and reach it from Preston, Burnley and beyond.

The St Mary’s Centre is quite small but sometimes that adds to a festival. The dull roar of 300 drunk men in an old building with terrible acoustics is second only to standing in a busy Wetherspoons at 9pm on a Saturday night and feeling drowned out by mindless noise. You can rest assured though that the Clitheroe festival is on a much more intimate scale.

While in the town I would also recommend a visit to the New Inn, which normally has around six beers on and is a fantastic old pub. In summer, wind through the low-beamed rooms out into the beer garden with a great view over the town – one of my all time top five beer gardens without a doubt. The Grand is also worth a look if open – the bar had a good choice of bottled beers on last time I went.

I’ll update here if I hear any more news but I do recommend this as one for a good Saturday out, especially if the weather is pleasant.

Beer festival · Beers · CAMRA · Clitheroe · New Inn · St Mary's Centre · The Grand

This year’s Boot beer festival in and around Eskdale and Boot in the Lakes has been announced for Thursday 10th June through to Sunday 13th June this year. It was a week earlier last year and I recall reading this post by Woolpack Dave last year about how he hoped for a greater gap between the end of half term and the festival, so I initially thought his prayers had been answered. However, it seems that thanks to a shift in dates it’s still just a week after the end of half term in Cumbria which according to this is June 4th.

I guess it’ll be another tough week for Dave, then, but I’m glad he’s still taking part because I can understand some of the problems he’s had in the past. Last year was my third or fourth weekend at the festival but it was the first time I and my group actually made it down to the Woolpack. I don’t wish this whole post to be just about this pub, as there are three taking part, but through reading Dave’s blog I have developed a closer tie to it than any of the others along that long, winding (and incredibly dark) road. In the past it’s seemed to be way too far down the road to be worth a visit in the evening, especially as we were camping at Fisherground. However, last year a shuttle bus ran from there down to the Woolpack which made it a hell of a lot easier and we made it on two of the three nights we were there – top marks for that idea.

I hope the bus is in action again this year as it made a massive difference for everyone staying at Fisherground, not to mention jumping on at the Boot Inn – without it I think we’d manage the walk down once at most.

Watching the band inside the marquee at the Woolpack Inn at the 2009 festival.

Dave also mentioned the cost of providing the marquee and the band. This is a tricky one as obviously he can’t expect a free lunch from the festival, but at the same time I can see why the costs are prohibitive. I personally enjoyed moving around from the pub to the marquee, and Dave’s cooking show was great to watch, but if the numbers don’t add up perhaps it may be one to sacrifice.

I do recommend this festival to anyone unfamiliar with the area, as the Eskdale valley is stunning and most drivers get a thrill from going over Hardknott Pass for the first time. If you keep up with Dave’s blog and fancy a weekend away supporting someone who cares about beer and good times, why not consider a trip over to one of the best festival weekends in Cumbria.

Beer festival · Beers · Boot · Boot Inn · Brook House Inn · Eskdale · Lake District · Woolpack Dave · Woolpack Inn

Fleetwood: home of pissed-up sailors.

And to the four corners of the land we go in the search for a pint of golden ale. This week: Fleetwood, home of fish, ferries and abandoned gloom. This is a brand of despair unique to forgotten Northern coastal towns, where regular gloom passed through twenty years ago and left behind streets of flat buildings stripped of life.

I went on a recce of Fleetwood at the weekend since I was in the area, and left wondering whether I’d have been better off leaving it to the weekend. I’ve rarely seen any town centre so deserted on a Sunday afternoon. The whole of the main road through town is dug up and fenced off as what looks like tramlines are laid down, the result of which is that you pick your side of the road and then you’re stuck with it for the next 500 metres. When you reach the end, you realise there’s nothing much there and come back down on the other side, a livelier mix of pound shops and two or three pubs.

The number of “TO LET” signs up is an immediate impression when you walk around Fleetwood. One, with a giant mural drawn by kids on the side, advertises food and good beers from a distance, but as you draw close you see the doors are firmly closed. There’s nothing else for a good ten minutes. Coming back down the other side of the road, I passed an interesting place which I’ll try on Saturday; black padded seats wrapped around the walls of a large bar as old men stood outside smoking. My kind of place. Further down the road, and two chain pubs sit on side roads heading into the sea. They’ll be worth a look and at least they’re open. On the way out, “the oldest pub in town” went past view and must be given a tour.

It was not the best time to go, I know – a Sunday afternoon in a forgotten coastal town in winter. Morrissey probably spent half of his teens writing his next twenty years of music round here. It leaves me then wondering what this weekend’s beer festival will be like. I like to have a wander around new towns and check out the pubs, but I’ve built a vague sense of foreboding into myself already. It’s like going on a holiday with people who’ve already been there – you feel drained of choice and free will and the days have an air of finality before they’ve even begun.

Nonetheless, the festival itself will hopefully be a good one and I’ll report back once we’re back.

Beer festival · Beers · Blackpool · CAMRA · Fleetwood · Fylde · wyre

A frankly terrifying photo from the Lancashire Telegraph.

The demise of Blackburn and Accrington’s annual beer festivals means that at the moment, the nearest to home for me is the Pendle festival in Colne. This sounds close but it’s still about 40 minutes on the train so I could pretty much be in Manchester in the same time. Still, Colne muni is a decent venue and at least it’s one I can get to without having to leave early to get back, or end up staying over in a grotty B&B, staying out ’til 4am and coming home £130 poorer.

It’s interesting to wonder what happened to the other festivals in the area. My last memory of a Blackburn festival must be from around 2001, at a guess. I remember it was before Barbara Castle Way was extended through to connect with Montague Street, as after the festival I ended up wrestling with my mates on the field which used to be there and my neighbour nearly called the police because he thought we were in a fight. Suffice to say, ample amounts of 8% scrumpy were involved in that particular night. There was going to be a festival in 2009 at King Georges Hall but it was cancelled due to lack of sponsorship.

Somewhere at home I have a t-shirt from the last Accrington festival which judging by this report was in 2004. My memories of that one are good – it was upstairs in the town hall, quite a big room and with a balcony overlooking the main road into the town. I’m not sure why that one ended but there’s been no word of another since, to the best of my knowledge.

In this part of the world we seem to have lost the bigger festivals in favour of smaller, more local ones. Take for example Clitheroe, which has had one for the last few years at the tiny St Mary’s Centre in May. There doesn’t seem to be any word yet whether they’ll be doing one this year, but I’m hopeful as last year’s was a good day out. The Aspinall Arms also hosts the Middle Earth beer festival, which I fully intend to get to this year; it’s quite a remote location but easily done if I can get a few people together.

It would be easy to worry about why the bigger festivals have died off around here, but I think there are particular circumstances in each case and they’re not part of a larger trend. The fact that smaller ones have thrived in their absence should, I think, just be appreciated.

Accrington · Aspinall Arms · Beer festival · Beers · Blackburn · Clitheroe · Colne · Middle Earth · Pendle · St Mary's Centre