Brampton Best – cheers!
I have to say I am very pleasantly surprised by this festival. The surroundings are, er, unusual. A marquee in a paddock adjacent to the former goods yard (now one of several rolling stock graveyards storage-pending-restoration areas on this site) serves as the focus of the festival. A second bar is running in some stabled coaching stock, which doubles as quiet a seating area.
The weather is stunning and absolutely makes the event. Apparently this time last year, for the inaugural Amber Valley Camra BeerFest here, they were ankle deep in mud. What a difference a year makes.
The legacy of last year might be the festival’s undoing. For much of this afternoon it is sad but true that volunteers/staff have outnumbered visitors/customers.
That is everyone else’s loss as far as I’m concerned as it has made for a really relaxing atmosphere. Good for me, but of course not for the organisers.
The beer choice is admirable, with a bias toward local micro-brewers – of which the legions are ever expanding, so there’s no danger of the choice getting boring.
So I’m sitting out in the paddock, in the dappled shade of a large tree, looking over toward the new houses occupying the Butterley Company’s former stock yard (with police radio mast beyond!). It’s hotter than it has a right to be for the last day of September, but a very gentle breeze and the cool, fine beer makes all right with the world.
Cheers.
Random Discourtesies 
What a fine way to spend a day.
I was mulling over the weather today, and came to the conclusion that yesterday was perhaps the most weatherly perfect day I could recall experiencing in the UK. It put me very, very much in mind of California: clear sky, deep blue above, slight breeze and a warmth and clarity to the light not often experienced round here. I came to the conclusion that it was so lovely because the sun doesn’t get very high in the sky, and as a consequence the whole day had a slight golden-hourly feel to it.
To have organised your beer festival for the last days of September and the first days of October, you must naturally fear the worst, so to be rewarded with this miraculous last glimpse of summer must be the answer to an organiser’s prayers. Sadly I think you are right, last year’s mud bath must have put people off. And, they’re probably at the seaside.
Have another one for me.
Jim
You’re absolutely right about the light and its ‘golden hour’ quality. I was snapping (yes, ‘snapping’, it was with a compact!) all day. Even at ordinary nonsense as it looked so good. Though to be fair, wearing sunglasses may have helped!
A splendid event, with a stop for coffee and a bit more beer on the way home. Currently being thrown around on the Villager in the Littleover area.
Sent from my iPhone
Jim,
You’re absolutely right about the light and its ‘golden hour’ quality. I was snapping (yes, ‘snapping’, it was with a compact!) all day. Even at ordinary nonsense as it looked so good. Though to be fair, wearing sunglasses may have helped!
A splendid event, with a stop for coffee and a bit more beer on the way home. Currently being thrown around on the Villager in the Littleover area.
Sent from my iPhone (at 20:28, but it somehow got lost…?)