Hereford Beer Festival

You can't get away with anything in Hay.
I've been off enjoying myself (hence no blogging last week) and on my first day back at work Mr Parcelforce, who collects the parcels from the shop every day, said to me: "I saw you at the beer festival yesterday."
On a Sunday, there is a bus from Hay to Hereford at five to twelve, getting in at about one o'clock, and a bus back at quarter to four - which is the last bus of the day. Which leaves a nice amount of time in between to get down to the Rowing Club on the Wye, where the Beer Festival was taking place.
"I know roughly where it is - and there'll be signs," I told my boyfriend. There were signs, but they were tiny, and we were lucky to see them - and then we weren't sure which way to go when we actually got to the Rowing Club. There was the tent, but how to reach it? A couple of wrong turns, through the car park and into the Rowing Club itself, and finally we got in.
It was the last day of the Festival, and a lot of the good beers had already sold out. They had Skullsplitter from the Orkneys (which does - never again!!), lots of local breweries, and other beers from all over Britain. Amongst the foreign beers, there were three different ones from Poland.
One beer that they hadn't sold out of was Woodforde's Wherry, from Norfolk. I used to drink it when I lived in Norwich, and I hadn't tasted it for twenty years - and it was just as wonderful as I remembered.
A slightly less successful choice was the Bazen's Salford Pale Ale, which was a bit too sharp for my palate, and which I chose purely because I grew up in Salford.
More successful was the Nethergate Umbel Magna, one of the few dark beers left - nectar.
While we sampled the beers, entertainment was provided by a morris troupe, and by the Rhythm Thieves, who didn't take themselves too seriously - they were trying to promote the concept of 'disco folk', amongst other things. And they have a website: www.rhythmthieves.co.uk
It was a very enjoyable day out - well done to all the CAMRA volunteers for organising it.