"Learning! There's learning going on!"

Yet another non-hockey blog. Skip if disinterested...

Last weekend, I did what has now become my annual pilgrimage to Bishops Castle for the Beer Festival. Accompanying me were my two Best Men for next years wedding, Geoff (my comedy Shallow End partner) and BCBF virgin, Richard.

To say the three of us are stressed and tired is a large understatement. So this weekend is an utter godsend. It isn't about consuming copious amounts of alcohol, the beauty of it is that Bishops Castle is out in the middle of nowhere, miles away from anywhere significant. I simply pitch a tent and then have some nice beer in a beautiful part of the world and for 48 hours simply watch the world go by.

Geoffers is experienced in the whole camping thing. For me, it is the one weekend a year I forsake the creature comforts - although like the temperamental artiste I am, I simply demand the use of an airbed - and Richard must be the only person in the world less experienced than me. Geoff brought his usual six man living accomodation - so large that I suggested we park my car in it and then, drive out of it on the Sunday morning to confuse everybody else on the campsite. Us pair had "Tesco specials" - three man tents, couple of sleeping bags, mats for 20 or 10 quid. Richard had tried putting his up beforehand as practice, I gather without success. Probably because, as I found out when getting the gear together, he hadn't actually found the instructions...

Accomodation sorted with only one brush with nettles by yours truly, and we headed into town with light hearts, heavy wallets, empty bladders and a selection of very fine hats. Bishops Castle is tiny, but it does have five pubs, two of which brew their own beer. For the Festival, you pick up a printed list of beers on offer at each pub (aka "the menu") and just pick a drink you like the sound of. The idea is not to get drunk, I'm a complete lightweight in that department anyway, but with fifty different beers to try, you sample in halves and take your time.

We started at the Three Tuns and it was then that Geoff and I discovered that for a beer and camping weekend, Richard hadn't been camping... and didn't like beer. He's a cider man, you see. Thankfully there was a large range of ciders and perrys to try, so he wasn't left out. Although on the menu of beers, he simply marked on a scale of "maybe, urgh, oh God no, vomit, projectile vomit". Manfully, he tasted every beer we bought anyway, it was easy to judge his preference by measuring the time between the sip to taste and the "urgh!" as it hit the Reverends palate.

"Who is playing footsie under the table? Oh, its a cat! Thank God for that!"

There were a few bands on, the Crown and Anchor put on a sort of blues band who had clearly been thrown together for the weekend. A drummer with a Rastafarian teacosy on his head, a keyboard player at least double the age of everyone else, Fat Billy Corgan on bass/vocals, Generic Bloke Probably Called Dave on lead guitar, and on other lead guitar, Wayne the Ginger Ponytail, who did the old guitarist thing of playing solos while pulling a face that looks like someone trying to pass a poo the size and shape of a bowling ball.

Incidentally, blues has the advantage of allowing a band to stretch three lines into an 11 minute jam. "Doing Dishes" was one such track, and by the time it had finished, I said "If the next one is called 'For Christs Sake, Hoover the Carpets', I'm outta here".

Geoff retired early, so Richard and I headed to the Six Bells for a couple more halves and the walk back to the camping site. We simply sat and looked at the stars for a while, Richard taking some photos that at least looked good on the mini-screen. After retiring to the sleeping bags, the flaw in our pitch became apparent at this point, as we were on a slope. I had set my bed up horizontally, therefore after climbing into my sleeping bag, I immediately rolled off the airbed and halfway down the hill.

"My God! They're rebuilding Portmeirion!"

Saturday. Off to the slowest cafe in history for breakfast. Under new management from last year, but still a long wait for food - in previous years, the kitchen has had to nip to the local Co-op to restock on bread, bacon and so on. The full English breakfast with mug of tea is well worth the wait though. A short potter around Bishops Castle (bought "Howard the Duck" on VHS for 50p! Bargainous!) and then we set off to actually find the Castle. Which was easier said than done, as we purposefully strode this way and that, up hill, down dale and through a maze of twisty passages, all alike. Eventually, more by luck than judgement we found... a wall. An old wall. A historic wall. But none the less, a wall.

So we ended up doing Karate Kid moves on a big log.

Saturday afternoon was spent at the Castle Hotel with its lovely big beer garden, meeting up with a couple of friends from another online forum. (Normally there are 10-20 of them, but for various reasons it just didn't happen this year.) A glorious late afternoon at the Six Bells, and I managed the feat of getting sunburnt.

"It sounded less like a fart, and more like an injured Wookie"

The only real problem with BC is the lack of decent food. There is plenty of barbecued burgers if that is your thing, but with a veggie in tow, it isn't a constant option. The curry house was right out, so we ended up at The Poppy House, a rather upmarket restaurant. Imagine, if you will, a classy place, and three scruffy gits wearing very fine hats waiting patiently for a table. It was no surprise that the waitress took us right through into the back room. Which was, in fact, very nice complete with sofa and chair. It was, however, slightly disturbing when us three sat down and the waitress lit the candle in the middle of the table. One wonderful steak later and we returned to the campsite to rest before heading back to the Castle for the evening shift.

There is no way of being subtle about this, but 48 hours of Real Ale and Perry meant that together, we had the capability to turn the air... green. We found a table away from the other diners for safetys sake (theirs, obviously) and talked and drank as the sun went down.

There is a bit at the end of the recent Top Gear episode where they drove through Alabama, and Jeremy Clarkson gives this wonderful speech about how he has driven Ferraris, Lamborghinis and all kinds of exotica, yet he wouldn't swap any of it for the thing he was doing right now, his current adventure through America, in beat up wrecks, with his mates. As we sat in a Shropshire beer garden, on Saturday night, in clouds of our own wind, wearing very fine hats and giggling like naughty children, I knew exactly what he meant.