retiredmartin

May 2023.

As the highlights package showed, May was a busy month,

with a quarter of the month spent “home” in Cambridge.

It’s purely coincidental that some of that time coincided with the in-laws ten (10) day visit.

Mrs RM had the joy of taking the family to Chatsworth House on the last Saturday of the month, and judging by her photos (get that blog going, Mrs RM) I missed a treat.

Except I detest those old National Trust style estates; I’d far rather be in Waterbeach admiring my parents (checks notes) flowers,

or making a quick excursion into Cambridge to take a peep at the first Cambridge Beer Festival since 2019.

That’s the big wheel on Parkers Piece from which you can see the size of the queues to get in the festival.

Yes Cambridge 2023 was a triumph, with 38,000 drinking 72,000* pints of real ale and getting on for a thousand new members signed up. Hoorah ! And while Cambridge has certainly benefitted from the undergraduates in digs yards from the tents, on the Saturday there were plenty of younger folk who definitely weren’t students.

CAMRA coffers boosted, everyone smiling, even the wonderful volunteers coping brilliantly in the heat.

And just look at those queues (for the Key Keg, mind). Yes, in 2023 folk were insistent on forming a vertical queue (diagram available exclusively to my Patronised readers) across the tent, leaving gaps horizontally at the bar for pub experts to nip in and “queue-jump”, with inevitable consequences. Youngsters should be taught pub etiquette at school.

I managed 3 halves in 45 minutes, drinking in the queue, all from well-regarded modern breweries (Three Blind Mice, Iron Pier and Cloudwater). All OK, none special.

So I nipped across Jesus Green (J. Green to the kidz),

where the ever-excellent Maypole was holding its own fringe festival that mops up punters when they’re kicked out of the main event during the afternoon mop-up,

and the New River was by a distance cooler and better conditioned than what I’d just had standing up in a tent.

But then, folk don’t run or go to beer festivals to experience beer at its best. Do they ?

* Yes, that’s LESS than two (2) pints of real ale per person. Kids, heh ?