Cannock Beer Festival

It takes a great deal of time to get to some of these beer festivals; especially when there’s more than one train involved. It’s therefore really appreciated when you come out of the station and find signs pointing you in the right direction. Sadly this wasn’t the case with Cannock; and it was phones out to follow the blue dot along the line. Sadly, this didn’t take into account the fact that we were to cross four lanes of traffic on a ring road; but luckily I spotted an underpass in the opposite direction. With the venue found, we climbed two flights of stairs to the entrance; where we were greeted by less than enthusiastic volunteers. The bar staff looked even more bored; as there were plenty of them compared to the ratio of customers. And you had would have thought that they were able to pay attention to detail; but my first beer was indeed a short measure. The rugby was also attempted to be broadcast; but this was on a small set in the lounge bar. Here, I waited an age to get some festival food; and ended up with quite a nice hot dog after waiting an age for chilli with cheese and nachos to arrive. Amazingly, they had managed to get a cask marque certificate for the event; which was great news for us; a rare visit to tick. And the organiser came over for a chat to tell us about his branch; which was very appreciative. The Black Country band were fantastic in their warm-up song; but their main performance seemed quite folky and we decided to leave during their beer break.

Someone once said that Cannock was the most miserable West Midlands town; and I think I agree.