Friday January 30th - Night out in Burton...

... goes for a Burton.

Had night out planned with Richard with a view to visit Burton upon Trent.

Well, all was going to plan albeit I feared I'd be late for the train.

The reality turned out to be the complete opposite due to trains being cancelled due to "fatality on the line".

So what to do (Derby and Birmingham both non starters due to the above, Lichfield was feasable but only a couple of hours till last train back so not really worth it, so back into town we trudged for a crawl round Tamworth.

En route we passed our normal meeting point, The Albert, but this appears to have been permanently closed, so onwards to our first stop, The Sir Robert Peel. I have "fond" recollections of this place from the time it used to be Hamletts wine bar but that was some 20 years ago. Anyway, two ales on taps Atlas Latitude (see http://www.atlasbrewery.com/latitude.htm) a cask pilsner of scottish origin. Whilst not being a great lager fan (but see comment later), I must say this was a nice beer and only 3.6%. Staying for another, Richard opted for a can of Red Stripe whilst for me it was Nethergate Suffolk County. Whether it was the pilsner's taste or not I don't know but this beer tasted slightly sweeter than one might expect from a best bitter.

Over and up the road to The Globe. Their guest beer this time was Black Sheep which joined their normal range of Bass, Worthington Bitter and the beer I opted for, Holden's Mild.

Onward to the White Lion. Church End Willie Brew'd sampled (as opposed to their standard offering Banks's Bitter) whilst beeting Richard 2-0 at pool.

Final port of call was The Bole Bridge (a Wetherspoons). I'd heard roumours that Green King beers were now the norm in these places but not here where we could have opted for Pedigree, Abbott, plus a range of beers from smaller breweries which alas I can't recall other than one had something to do with Titus Salt and another that was due on soon was Palm , a Belgium amber ale). We however opted to put the world to rights over a couple of bottles of 99p San Miguel before venturing our separate ways and for me a further chance or research the project from a few weeks ago around what difference beer does make to the taste of a donner kebab.