Ashfield Beer Festival and Nottingham...
Ashfield Beer Festival and Nottingham crawl – 5.6.07
Our real ale week started on Tuesday 5.6.07 when we took our caravan to a new site for us at Allesley near Coventry. It was quite a large site, and there were American motor homes for sale on the site. We had to pay £25 for a barrier key as Ray was going to go to work from the site until we moved on to Newstead for the weekend, and the site was kept secure by the barrier after office hours. We were shown to a pitch near the toilet block, and set everything up.
The site itself was lovely. There was hard standing for the van and the porch awning was on grass. We had a corner pitch and were able to put the bird feeders up close by. There were loads of birds visiting.
On Wednesday I had a walk to the local pub, the White Lion at Brownhalls Green to see what real ale was available. There was only Bass and M & B Brew XI so I took a Brew XI into the garden. I walked back up to the caravan site, and sat outside watching the birds until Ray got home from work.
The weather was brilliant for the rest of the week, so I decided to stay on site instead of travelling round the area, and I had a lovely time relaxing in the sun watching all sorts of birds on the feeders, including a Greater Spotted Woodpecker.
On Friday when Ray finished work we packed up and moved on to a site at Newstead where we were meeting friends to go to Ashfield beer festival in the Miners Hall. Armed with directions for a short cut, we set off across fields to reach the village, but we had been given a right turn instead of left, and ended up spending about 20 minutes wading round the edges of fields in the stinging nettles. Ooooh the pain. Ray and I were in shorts. By the time we got to the festival we were ready for refreshment.
The Ashfield beer festival was great. There were 2 groups on, one folk and one rock. There was food and lots of lovely beer. Most of the beer we had was new to us, but we had one or two that we had drunk before. Those sampled were: Abbeydale Black Mass at 6.66 ABV, Amber Amber Bock and Imperial Pale, Castle Rock Common Blue, Crouch Vale Brewers Gold, Durham Cuthberts Cross, Full Mash Séance, Funfair Magic Mouse and Mighty Mouse, Holland Mad Jack Stout, Iceni Raspberry Wheat, Maypole Celebration and Ki Wi Pale, Nottingham Clayton’s Original and Spanker, Nutbrook Banter Bitter and Squirrel. We had a grand night, and walked back via the road!
Saturday saw us on the bus to Nottingham to do a crawl round some real ale pubs. We started at the Olde Trip to Jerusalem and that was fantastic. It was great to be able to wander round the various rooms carved into the rock by the castle as well as drinking their ales. We drank 2 Hardy and Hanson’s beers – Kimberley Mild and Olde Trip plus a Robinson’s Dizzy Blonde while wandering round. We set off along the canal to Fellows Morton and Clayton and had something to eat here while drinking Samuel Fellow’s Bitter, Mallards Quackerjack and Nottingham EPA. The Next pub was the Vat and Fiddle that looked a friendly community local. We had Castle Rock Nottingham Gold and Mighty Oak Malden Gold here. Our last pub in the centre was the Khean’s Head, a one room pub where we sat on one side using a counter/shelf as a table. We had Castle Rock Common Blue here. I wanted to go to the Alcazar Brew Pub, so a tram trip was made to the Fox and Crown. This was a popular pub with a central bar serving their own beers and we had Brush Bitter, Sheriff’s Gold, Nottingham Nog, and Vixen’s Vice before catching the tram to the Lion Inn. There was a large garden but we went to drink inside. We had Archers Strong Dark Mild and Derby Derby’s Pale Ale, but the Archers was off so I returned it. They would not give me my money back so I had Downton Quadhop.
This had been a lovely week in the caravan, and a super weekend with friends.
