Good Beer and Live Music

I seem to have spent rather a lot of time in Kilvert's over the last week.
Mark brought some bottles of beer for Eddie to try out (from Kernel Brewery in London), and we had to sample some of the delights behind the bar.
Then there was Open Mic - with more people arriving with instruments than were able to play. There was a wonderful jam session early on with some good Irish music on fiddles, banjo, guitar, bodhran and squeeze box, and later there was a chap with a soprano saxophone, who was called on to accompany another performer - all unrehearsed and ad lib, which is one of the fun things about open mic. You never know what's going to happen next! Anna finished the evening on the piano, with Chris reading from his book right at the last ("I've already had my free pint!" he said, when Anna's last song of the evening was announced). Tim says, in his weekly flyer, "I sometimes wonder if these evenings can get any better under the circumstances - and an impish little voice whispers in my ear 'Yes they can, yes they can'."
It was a good week for Irish music, Saturday being St Patrick's Day, and half a dozen players of Irish music turned up, with no electronics, to play in a corner of Kilvert's after the rugby finished (I understand Wales won!). It wasn't so loud that it drowned out conversation, but loud enough to be listened to by those who appreciated good music - and they were all very good.
Beer of the week, among some excellent contenders, had to be a bottle of Raging Bitch (I forget the brewery), which Mark described as "Jaipur's older brother when he's gone through puberty" - Jaipur being a rather excellent IPA from Thornbridge, with a hoppy taste that dances on your tongue!