Derby CAMRA Heritage Beer Festival

I love a beer festival. Many of my faves are now sadly defunct (Walsall and Birmingham spring to mind) – however there is so much great beer variety in pubs these days that it could be argued that these festivals aren’t needed any more. And yet it always was nice to see the same faces at these festivals every year. And that’s what makes beer festivals so special. They are a celebration of people who enjoy beer – like a big party but one where you don’t have to BYOB because otherwise you’ll be drinking lager or prosecco all night (and who wants that?). A festival is also a fine excuse to visit a beer town, in the hope that the pubs will raise their game to tempt beer drinkers into their own mini festival. And thus it was that I found myself boarding a train to Derby (via Leeds) to meet up with Wendy and Karina for a visit to the Derby CAMRA Heritage Beer Festival.

Southbound

Today I was armed with a book (This Was a Man by Jeffrey Archer), an Earl Grey and some healthy snackage (eggs) courtesy of my lifestyle guru Paddington. Beer festivals are generally shit somewhat of a lottery foodwise so it was important I had something healthy to snack on. I spent the first leg of my train trip writing my Harrogate blog. I’ve got into the habit of writing first thing every day now, which not only rids me of my guilt for not writing but also, er, gets stuff written; it’s a win/win, right? Anyway, that done, I looked up and found myself at Leeds station.

This was my second visit in a week to Leeds station, following my trip to Harrogate on Tuesday. I can now confirm that it is definitely the coldest station on the planet (yes, even colder than Preston). I had quite a wait for my connection today so resolved to use this time to find resourceful ways to keep warm. My first port of call was the loo for the obligatory review (and also to seek warmth from the hot water and hand drier).

Next stop was Pret to grab another Earl Grey to keep my temperature above freezing. Then to keep moving, hunt down my platform and find somewhere to shelter while I waited. Mercifully there was a waiting room, so I took refuge there with my book and brew. Then, not a moment too soon (obvs running late) came my connecting train to Derby. I parked myself down, read some more of my book, touched base with the girls and – as if by magic – I was already in Derby. Writing and reading are wonderful ways of passing the time on trains (I had 5h travelling today and the time not only whizzed by, but I rattled through my to do list).

Wendy and Karina arrived not long after me. We had factored in time for breakfast and we headed to a place that had come recommended on Twitter.

Britannia Cafe

Upon entering, there was not only a queue at the counter but also zero available tables. From past experiences in Hull, Norwich, Stalybridge and Clitheroe, I read this as a good sign. I mean, places are popular because they’re good, right? Thus, we loitered in the hope that a table would become available, which it happily did. Coats duly draped over the backs of our chairs, we joined the queue at the counter.

By the time we’d got to the front of the queue, I had talked myself into a mince pie. Lets face it, a beer festival day wasn’t going to be a healthy one, was it? And this actually turned out to be my only mince pie of the year.

My brew was presented to me with the bag still in it. Now I don’t like objects in my drinks (you’ll never see me with a mojito). When I’m ordering a brew from a kiosk, I will always specify ‘bag removed’ because I know that takeaway teas are served with bags in situ. But not in a sit down caff.

‘Ooh could you remove the bag, please?’

‘You can take it out yourself…’

‘Er, what with?’

‘There’s spoons over there.’

‘Er and where do I put it?’

‘On your saucer.’

Now, is this me? Was this an unreasonable request? I simply don’t want a teabag lurking in my drink or on my saucer. And yet such a response made me question whether I was being entitled. But for fuck’s sake, it wasn’t as if I looked at the saucer and complained that there wasn’t a biscuit.

Stomachs duly lined, it was time to trot off to the festival. Oh, but we’ve got time for a cheeky one first, right?

Furnace Inn

Right, now what to drink?

All that choice and not one dark beer? I went for the best bitter, which was lovely, actually.

Can you spot the theme of those beers? Answer below the next pic.

It was, of course, a Manchester themed beer selection. They like a theme here – and we were sorry to have missed their Sour September. Wendy has long been an advocate of sours and I’m leaning more towards them these days. I’ll always love a mild or a milk stout or a porter that actually tastes like what it says on the can, but I’m learning that I’m not really a fan of imperial porters and the like that are upwards of 10% and just taste of strong alcohol. This is a relatively recent revelation and I hope that it will help me keep the ABV levels down on future crawls.

Now I visited the Furnace almost ten years ago and it has stuck in my mind because, on that visit, I enjoyed the Best Pork Pie Ever. I don’t actually like pies, least of all pork pies. But this one was outstanding.

I had to follow this up and find out if they still had these pork pies. Yeah, sure, we’d just had breakfast but I’d take one away to scoff on the train home (sorry Paddington).

I was dismayed to learn that they had sold out and were awaiting their next delivery from Barry Fitch Butchers in Little Eaton. However, having now looked up the famous pie that I had enjoyed so much (which I obviously kept a record of), I can see that it had been sourced from Anthony Andrews Butchers. Sadly Paddington has blocked me from their website but you might want to check them out (and add a chilli pork pie onto your order for me).

Pie famine notwithstanding, this was an epic pub – not least because of our incredibly knowledgeable hostess. I smiled to myself as the three women enthused about various beers and I trotted off to take some pics of the interior.

We could absolutely have stayed here all day but of course we had a beer fest to go to.

Derby CAMRA Heritage Beer Festival

As always, I was confused on entering the beer fest because I never know how these things are going to work. Today I was completely thrown with the revelation that this was a token-free fest – and you paid for your beers in cash (well, card for me) as you ordered them. I don’t think I’ve experienced this at a fest before – but I liked it. I usually end up giving tokens away or seeing the number of tokens as a target for my drinking. And that’s not the way forward.

I had studied the beer list prior to my visit and had resolved to stick to milds today, as there were plenty of them. Obvs that plan didn’t work…

Here’s what I had (tasting notes from the programme, not mine):

• Brunswick – Jamie’s Cinder Toffee Tales – Cinder toffee stout. (This one was my fave of the fest).
• Leatherbritches – Toffanilla – A smooth mega rich porter with toffee and vanilla undertones.
• Magpie – Basic Witch – A pumpkin latte spiced stout with coffee beans and a blend of cloves, star anise and cinnamon.
• Thornbridge – Sun Goes Down.
• Thornbridge X Salt – Greenock Cut – Deep amber appearance, all-enveloping with malt-forward flavours of caramel and biscuit. Notes of raisin and honey with a beautiful hoppy warmth.

And here’s what I wanted to try but they either weren’t on yet or had already gone:

• Crich Brew – Unnecessary Umlauts – A chocolate and cherry stout.
• Little – Match – Bonfire toffee porter.
• Pentrich – Green Triangles – A rich and decadent chocolate and hazelnut milk stout. This beer is packed full of sweet chocolate and nutty praline flavours, with an underlying roast note from the base stout. Lactose adds more sweetness and body.

And here’s the ones I might have had but didn’t get round to:

• Dancing Duck – Dark Drake – Delicious malty, caramel and liquorice flavours combine wonderfully in a smooth drinking velvety, oatmeal stout with a freshly roasted coffee and toffee finish.
• Dancing Duck – VIP – Based on Indian Porter, this beer has been infused with Madagascan Vanilla Pods to produce a creamy, warming and smooth dark beer.
• Electric Bear – Inspector Remorse – Heaps of chocolate and biscuity malt produces a fantastically quaffable porter.
• Fixed Wheel – Locomotive Spiced Porter.
• Green Duck – Mild XXL.
• Salcombe – Island Street Porter – A velvety delicately bitter porter with just a hint of sweetness. Eight different malts combine to suggest dark chocolate, coffee and black cherry.
• South Hams – Pumpkin Pride.
• Steelfish – Mild at Heart.

Disappointingly, the beer listings in the programme were not complete, with some missing ABVs, style and tasting notes. I’d have just googled these for completeness (surely the beer style for Bostin Bitter and Bostin Mild are obvious?).

Anyway, lets check out the scran, shall we? There was actually a man coming round the tables taking people’s food orders – another new one on me at a beer festival, but again I liked it. I decided I needed to take a look at the food before committing to anything.

There was a LOT of pastry on display here and Paddington would have most definitely not approved! Instead, we tucked into something Wendy prepared earlier: satay chicken and sweet chilli chicken skewers. No pic, as they were gromphed quite quickly.

I was a bit wary about checking out the loos, as Wendy had come back in a rage about the state of them. Perhaps I simply have lower standards but I thought they were fine.

On my wanderings around the festival venue today, I twice encountered a man who addressed me as ‘duck’, which made me smile. There aren’t enough pet names in the world today.

Karina came back with a can for us to try from the World and Bottled Beer stand that I had been keeping well away from for safety reasons. One of the many joys of going out with these two is the habit we seem to have of sharing cans, making them less dangerous. And who could resist a green beer from a Polish brewery we’d never heard of? Not us!

As evidenced by the cap on the table above, we were joined by some friends who I certainly hadn’t seen for years – since I was Branch Secretary for Birmingham CAMRA, probably around the time I had that pork pie. I’m not sure I’ve ever been to a beer festival and NOT bumped into someone I know from the beer scene (Stone Brewery and Barcelona beer fests aside).

I enjoyed every single beer I had at this festival. I know this because they are all annotated with smiley faces in my festival programme :). And I was pleased that I’d only had five thirds, plus a third of a can. My plan had been to be sober enough to make productive use of my train journey home and I was on course to do this – woohoo! Get me learning sensible drinking! Ok yeah this MIGHT have had something to do with the beers I really fancied not being available, but all the same…

Another pub, then?

Brunswick Inn

Well, you can’t go to Derby on the train and not go to the Brunswick, can you?

Ooh look – they’ve got my fave beer from the festival! Obvs I was having that again – and at source, too, with it being brewed here in this very pub (presumably).

The above beer board did not do the beer selection here justice. Also I couldn’t be arsed forgot to go round the bar snapping the pump clips for you, dear reader. What I did do, however (why have I not thought to do this before?) was snap the entries on Untappd. And here they are:

Impressive choice, right?

Now we hadn’t had a meal since breakfast so we tucked into something hearty here.

By now I was well fed and watered and nice and toasty and ready to head home. I bade farewell to the girls and darted across the road in the direction of Derby station…

Northbound

I returned home via an alternative route, changing at Sheffield and Manchester Piccadilly. Being relatively sober, I managed to use the time to watch a couple of video replays of sessions relating to my writing and Fuck It Therapy, as well as doing a bit more reading when the buffering became too annoying, before catching up on Corrie on the last leg of the journey home to Blackpool North.

What a brilliant day out this had been – and a reminder that I really should get another festival pencilled in for the new year. Why don’t you get one pencilled in too – and perhaps I’ll see you there. Which festivals do you recommend?

If you enjoy my blogs, please do subscribe to receive them via email using the box below (if you’re on a mobile device) or on the left (if you’re on a desktop device). If you want more day-to-day nonsense, you can now find me on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/blackpooljane.bsky.social. I’m not blogging quite so much these days to free up more time to write my book and complete my degree but I’m still here! Thanks for reading.

Further Reading:

This piece from Beer Nouveau is an excellent deep dive into the importance of beer festivals.