PDA

View Full Version : Called to the Bar - Thornbridge comes to Exmoor



Blog Tracker
27-05-2010, 22:12
Visit the Called to the bar site (http://maltworms.blogspot.com/2010/05/thornbridge-comes-to-exmoor.html)


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GmjnOI2FKxc/S_7fJaBu2PI/AAAAAAAAAbc/7_jewpA4tbY/s400/PICT6681.JPG (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GmjnOI2FKxc/S_7fJaBu2PI/AAAAAAAAAbc/7_jewpA4tbY/s1600/PICT6681.JPG)
It’s the Dulverton Folk Festival (http://www.dulvertonfolkfestival.net/) this weekend. Imagine this: a rag tag army of Morris men, bewhiskered musicians, guitars slung on their backs like bandoliers and dressed in coats of many colours, and clog-dancers, clacking and shucking into town like an invading army from some nightmarish episode of Dr Who, will proceed across the bridge, tattered banners waving in the wind (very Ran, very Kuroshawa), flapping and slapping, drunken harlequins and jesters, bent and disarrayed at the front of the column, swaying and gesturing to uncaring townsfolk, while the sound of the drum at the back of the column, solemn, funereal will signify the start of a weekend of neo-bacchanalian fun. And leading the beery battalions will be Thornbridge (http://www.thornbridgebrewery.co.uk/) — Kipling is already on at the Bridge (http://www.thebridgeinndulverton.com/), while Wild Swan and Jaipur are ready and waiting for their weekend beer festival.
So earlier this evening I had to creep down the high street, unwilling student of ale that I am, to see what Kipling had in store for me. ‘It’s garbage,’ sneered Robbie, at the end of the bar, a pint of Exmoor Ale (http://www.exmoorales.co.uk/) in his hand (he insisted I call him Bert, so I will), somewhat of a large tongue in cheek. ‘It’s not beer,’ Bert thundered, ‘you’re only pretending to like it. Jonathan behind the bar — ‘I don’t really drink’ — said that he enjoyed it, while I took my glass outside for a proper evaluation; like a wraith Bert suddenly appeared on another table, fag in hand, Exmoor Ale swirled in glass. On another table: ‘she’s going to let him have the house’ floated over, ‘I think she’s been seen with that bloke from the Black Eyed Peas,’ she continued. On the bridge, instead of multi-coloured troubadours lacing themselves into town, getting medieval on our collective asses, a hiccup of caravans and camper vans with the sort of names that suggested the owners had either followed Peter Mayle to Provence or were swingers (you don’t think I’m going to put a link here surely) turn right for the site just along the river where they can park (and perhaps prise their harlequin costumes out of big whicker trunks).

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GmjnOI2FKxc/S_7fhDW8jJI/AAAAAAAAAbk/Sgf75jzoFJU/s320/DownloadedFile.jpeg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GmjnOI2FKxc/S_7fhDW8jJI/AAAAAAAAAbk/Sgf75jzoFJU/s1600/DownloadedFile.jpeg)
The glass of Kipling is luscious and luminescent in the glass, orange-amber, swaying and sashaying across the palate, Carmen Miranda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Miranda) with a bowl of tropical fruit on her head doing a rumba, lychees, melon and passion fruit — the all too easy recourse to sweetness that such a bowl of fruit would bring kept in line with a palate blaster of dryness and an appetising bitterness that gets the gills going and the gastric juices flowing. South Pacific Pale Ale it said on the pump clip — that sums it up said Jonathan behind the bar. I thought South Pacific (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052225/) where there was nothing but a dame, The Pacific (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374463/) and Jonah Lomu running over Englishmen, but best of all I thought: gorgeous, beautiful, alluring ale. And now safely at home a bottle of Halcyon awaits.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3076725205410370436-5877373349762619024?l=maltworms.blogspot.com


More... (http://maltworms.blogspot.com/2010/05/thornbridge-comes-to-exmoor.html)