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

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

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