Wigan Beer Festival

Wigan is my favourite town in the world and I need little excuse to visit. Wigan Beer Festival is now an annual fixture in my calendar and I always look forward to it.

Northern decided they were going to strike on the Friday I was due to go. But Northern were not going to come between me and my beloved Wigan. As seems to be the case every fucking week at the moment, my mind whirred as I tried to come up with a Plan B.

I could go on the Thursday but if I did that I’d miss out on seeing Sarah, who wasn’t arriving until the Friday. So that ruled that out.

I could go on the Saturday, either side of Chase’s match at Prescot Cables, which seemed easy enough. It would be a bit of a faff but at least it was doable.

I messaged the guys at the Cask & Tap, as I knew they’d been planning on going on the Friday too. Perhaps we could share an Uber or something? Alas, they had decided against going. But they did give me a lead: Rick from Blackpool Fylde & Wyre CAMRA was going on the Friday.

I messaged Rick, who confirmed that he and Gary were getting the bus to Preston, then taking an Avanti train (not on strike) from there to Wigan. Not only was this fucking genius but it also worked out cheaper than the train.

Plan F it was then!

Southbound

It was a trek to the bus stop in the rain. This was one of those bus stops where you have to pay attention to look if the bus is coming because it would appear all of a sudden from round a corner. Of course a watched pot never boils and all that so obvs the bus was late but it came in the end and was nice and toasty.

One young passenger was not impressed with a dog on the bus (‘if you’re going out, leave your dog at home’). Another woman was sobbing profusely.

Naturally, on landing in Preston, the weather was bleak: grey and wet. As I tramped across to the train station, I shivered as I realised I’d forgotten to ask Alexa what the weather was like before getting dressed and consequently I wasn’t wearing enough layers (this weather called for a shirt). As I cursed the grimness of the Preston weather, I realised that it was probably not that dissimilar to Wigan (where it’s ALWAYS raining). And I love the Wigan rain. It’s all in my head of course, having been conditioned (as a Blackpool fan) to ‘hate’ Preston – and having fallen in love with Wigan because how can you NOT fall in love with Wigan?

The train to Wigan was also toasty. The trains have been toasty all winter and I’m very pleased about that.

As always, I found myself smiling as I skipped out of Wigan North Western station. Wigan is my happy place.

As always, I’d researched my itinerary in advance. Google advised me that the chippy opened at 1100 (of course the chippy opens for breakfast in Wigan!). Alas the sign on the door of Wallgate Chippy indicated an 1130 opening time. Hmm. Well I wasn’t going to stand outside the chippy waiting for it to open…

Pub…?

The Raven

I knew the trusty Raven would be open early so a half of mild for breakfast it was…

The music in here was great, including Alice Cooper and Video Killed The Radio Star. I could have happily stayed in here all day supping that lush dark mild (a drink I CAN safely drink all day, at a safe 4%).

I was seated in the main room at the front, by the bar. I overheard the barman asking a group of beardy men if they were CAMRA members, presumably to offer them a discount on the ale. Why wasn’t I asked that when ordering my half of mild…? Not that I’m into discounts per se but I hope you get my point.

Ooh they do breakfast here!

But my heart was set on a chippy for breakfast (when in Wigan…) and happily this was now open, so I headed right over there.

Wallgate Chippy

I always have the same thing at the chippy because I know what I like. Also, sticking to the same three key components of a chippy tea breakfast allows me to fairly judge chippies. It is rare that any chippy gets all three components bob on. But when I find one that does, that’s a chippy I’ll return to. Hence my repeated visits here.

I very much enjoyed tucking into this, as always. It was only a mini fish and chips but that’s always plenty for me. Indeed, I couldn’t finish this (perhaps it was a little early for the chippy).

Now it was past noon, I made the short walk to my favourite pub in Wigan.

Swan & Railway

Right, let’s check out the beers. Must not go too strong before the beer festival because I’ve seen that list of lush dark beers and I want them ALL.

As always, I was made welcome immediately by landlady Shelley. She was excited to share a SlimmingWorld recipe with me.

‘Try this rice pudding. I bet you can’t guess what’s in it. It’s all free food on SlimmingWorld.’

Dear reader, this was the sweetest, most delicious rice pudding. And I was stumped as to how it got its sweetness. Surely that wasn’t possible with free food (the foods you can have unlimited amounts of on the plan)? I couldn’t even summon a guess. I gave up.

‘It’s pudding rice cooked in American cream soda.’

That was fucking genius.

‘I’ve lost 17 pounds so far.’

Well that wasn’t surprising with delicious food like this to eat.

Personally, I suppress my sweet tooth on the plan. I will have fruit and flavoured fat free yoghurt, but puddings have never really been my thing. And once I start on the chocolate I can’t stop, so it’s safer for me to avoid the sweet stuff altogether to save me being triggered. But damn this rice pudding was good…

I paid a visit to the Ladies and heard a woman speaking in there. I don’t know why but I just assumed she was talking to a dog and this was indeed the case. Indeed this was the ‘shit guide dog’ that I’d encountered on my visit here last year.

The front room here has very much a locals vibe and I always get chatting to anyone and everyone and I like that. Rick and Gary from Blackpool Fylde & Wyre CAMRA rocked up. And here was Sarah, arriving in a fluster.

‘I’ve just been to America and back on my own and managed perfectly well. Now my menopausal brain can’t even get me to Wigan without forgetting my card.’

She’d managed to scrabble together enough change to pay for an hour’s parking but now needed help, which Shelley and I were happy to offer.

‘I suppose you’ll be wanting me to buy you a drink then,’ I asked, as she coppered up on the table.

This led to a room-wide conversation on the menopause, which I listened to with interest (as I have this to come).

‘Just keep rubbing on the gel.’

The men at the front of the room got involved

‘We go through the menopause too. We suffer more than you. What’s a guy got to say? I just want a wank.’

We then moved on to the subject of chickens, which invariably happens with Sarah, who keeps them as pets. Shelley mentioned some who lived locally that she’d often spot up in trees. Who knew that chickens could climb trees? (I’ve since followed this up and apparently they don’t climb up, they just flap their way up. You won’t get this content anywhere else, dear reader).

Shelley foisted a pile of CAMRA mags on me.

‘Drop them off at beer festival will ya?’

‘Sure, no probs.’

Sadly we didn’t have long here. Sarah had quickly checked in but she only had an hour on the car park – and needed to be at the fest, where she was volunteering (remember this is where we first met, when we spoke about glass engravings). So off we darted, calling at a cashpoint en route to the car park.

We chatted as we walked up to the car park and I shared with Sarah something I’d recently learned about bats. Did you know they pollinate over 500 species of plant, including banana and cacao? Sarah was impressed with this bat stat and I was chuffed that I’d finally taught her something, as it’s usually the other way round.

Woah! What the hell is this?!

If only it was open (was it open?) and if only we weren’t in such a hurry to (a) get to the car park before Sarah’s hour expired; and (b) get to the beer festival. I announced that we were DEFINITELY going here on our next visit to Wigan (for there will always be more because we love love love Wigan).

Oh hang on – there’s more! This place was next door.

Sarah was particularly taken with this poster and we both pondered who on earth would take their mother to a nightclub at midnight. Is this a Wigan thing? Anyway we NEED to visit these places so I’m bookmarking them here.

We called back into the Swan for something or other before continuing down the canal towards the beer festival which was, after all, the reason for our visit here today.

Wigan Beer Festival

Sarah waltzed straight through the entrance as a volunteer and marched off to do whatever volunteers do (my view is that beer festivals need customers, so I see drinking as my job). Meanwhile I spoke to a man behind the CAMRA members counter about the admin required to get me in.

‘Oh you look like a CAMRA member.’

Was he being ironic? I flashed my CAMRA card at him anyway to verify.

Now armed with glass, beer tokens and festival programme, I headed into the sports hall where the festival was being held. This is an open plan room with tiered bench seating at one end of the room and the beers and food stalls at the other end, with miscellaneous stalls against the side walls, such as the Brewery Jewellery woman, pub games, a craft beer stall, I think a gin stall and probably a cider one but I’m not interested in that so didn’t pay any attention to it (if it indeed existed).

On selecting my first beer, I quickly realised that I had made a schoolgirl error. I’d not brought a pen! How was I going to remember what I’d had to drink (ok, Untappd) or, more to the point, if I’d enjoyed the beers? I like to annotate my festival programme with circles next to the beers I want to try and then I add an appropriate face to denote whether I’ve enjoyed the beer or not. So if I’ve enjoyed a beer, it gets a smiley face. If I’ve REALLY enjoyed a beer, it gets a big toothy grin. If a beer is a bit meh, it gets a horizontal line for a mouth. If a beer is a bit grim, it gets a sad face. And if a beer is gross, it gets crosses for eyes. This annotation is a big part of the festival fun for me and I was lost without a pen.

Sarah didn’t have a pen either, so was no use. She did, however, start talking about focal sticks for some reason. Perhaps I’d mentioned about going to the eye clinic to investigate laser surgery / lens replacement (decided against it for now). Anyway I had no idea what a focal stick was (apparently something to gauge how your short sight will deteriorate over time) so once again Sarah had taught me something I never realised I needed to know. Where has she been all my life?

As I pondered my next beer choice by the dark beer bar (love that they group all the dark beers together), I was approached by a man who recognised me.

‘We met at Chorley festival.’

Having now referred back to my Chorley blog, I’m guessing this was Paul. I really ought to take photos of friends I meet on my travels as a memory prompt. It’s one thing noting their names but faces I’m equally terrible with.

Anyway Paul recommended a few beers – some of which appealed to my taste and others didn’t – and it was lovely to see his friendly face here. I love Wigan as it’s full of friendly faces.

Sarah returned with news from the staff room.

‘There are no pens in there but there are plenty of pies.’

Sarah spotted someone drinking something very blue and I consulted the programme to investigate what this could be. This is the answer.

This was the best beer of the festival for me by a country mile.

I’m pals with brewer Sean on Twitter and he keeps inviting me down to Crewe but this was the first time I’d tried one of his beers. Methinks that visit to Crewe needs to happen very soon because this was fucking lush.

Obvs now I’m on the keg it’s a sign I need to leave – but before I did so I paid a visit to the cheese stall to pick up some of that cheese I got VERY excited about in Atherton the other week…

I squirrelled my glass over to Sarah to take back to Shelley at the Swan before heading for the exit. Somehow en route I managed to sustain a rather vicious paper cut from my programme and ended up sucking blood from my finger all the way back to the station.

As I sat on the platform waiting for my train, delicious foody aromas wafted up my nose. Mmm pizza. Hang on. Is that woman eating pizza with a wooden fork? Perplexed, I tried to examine the contents of her pizza box more closely. Was it even possible to eat pizza with a wooden fork? Why would you even try? Was it a food hygiene thing? Annoyingly, she was shielding the contents, keeping the lid closed in between mouthfuls. I kept looking though because this was a ridiculous situation and I needed answers. I THINK she was actually eating pasta (in disguise in a pizza box), which made much more sense.

Northbound

It was a short hop on the Avanti train from Wigan North Western to Preston. You’ll note I’m not calling it Blackpool East any more. I appear to have a new-found respect (I can’t bring myself to say ‘affection’) for Preston since my recent visit with my fanzine counterpart.

As I hopped off the train, I bumped into Rick and Gary. This was fortuitous as it saved me having to consult Google Maps to navigate my way back to the bus stop. We somehow lost Rick (I think he was muttering something about the toilet) and Gary announced he was heading to a pub I hadn’t got round to visiting but had heard good things about. Well, since I was following him to the bus stop, I guessed I had no choice but to head to the pub with him. Another drink at this juncture was a risky strategy with a 90 minute bus ride ahead of us, but I decided to invoke the ‘fuck it’.

Plug & Taps

Oh my what a pub this is!

As I gazed at the beer board I announced that I wanted something dark but I was a bit scared of the ABV of number 8.

‘Ere y’are – try a bit o’mine.’

The woman at the bar was most insistent and waxing lyrical about the beer I knew I wanted but should not have at that strength.

I politely refused the taster and went back to studying the beer board. This is what I went for:

I liked the vibe of this place very much. Here’s some wall art for your enjoyment.

Gary tried in vain to get through to Rick on the phone. I don’t think they have phone masts in Preston. I could say something about Scott Benton here but I’m not going to. Anyway we tootled off to the bus stop, got chatting with some randoms who’d also been to Wigan Beer Festival and got given a free day bus ticket by some woman (it wasn’t valid on our bus).

Eastbound

Our bus came and I was delighted to discover that, as it was now after 7pm, it only cost £1 for the 90 minute journey to Blackpool. How fucking good is that?

I banged on South of Salem and listened to them most of the way home before chatting with Gary for the last leg of the journey, which didn’t feel like 90 minutes at all.

What a fun and eventful day that was. I do love my adventures on my travels and I hope you enjoy reading about them, dear reader. If you do then please do follow this link and support me in my efforts to keep these blogs coming.

Next up: Rochdale Pubs.