Winter Ales Festival

My first ever beer festival was at the Roundhouse around this time last year. It was the Saturday session and it was packed - I was alone and without a guide beyond a friend of mine telling me a few years ago that I should start small and work my way up to the big guns. I got a bit lost, did not enjoy a lot of the pales that I did find, and then went all out on what remained of the stouts. I mean, I can't complain, I got free entry and the time to spend there.

This year things are a little different. The National Winter Ales Festival has moved to Norwich and is later in the year, I have been to two other beer festivals and have an inkling that I prefer the stouts and the milds and the porters so I know what I'm going in and looking for. Also, my Dad had agreed to join me on this one. So it was that I went down to the lunchtime session at Derby Winter Ales Festival on Thursday and made myself entirely too tipsy to be writing that up for the evening.

It was a good time and I had plenty of decent heavy stout action, would you like to know more?