retiredmartin

May 2024. Cambridge.

You’ll know I’m not one for tradition, unless that tradition involves a crispy beef from Chung Hwa, and I’m certainly no fan of beer festivals, for reasons which became even more obvious at this year’s Cambridge Fest, one of the oldest/biggest/best in the country.

But as I’m round Mum and Dads and can only nip out once they’re asleep at 8, it seemed churlish not to nip they’re on the train in a vain attempt to get anywhere near the 20,000 steps a day I need to retain sanity.

The rains had cleared; Waterbeach looked splendid.

No, it really did. Here’s those vast skies people like.

I arrive in town at 8:40, a sprint from station to Jesus Green that should take 36 minutes takes 21,

and I still get a moment to pause and recall lost pubs in the Kite,

and the splendour of Midsummer Common.

Central Cambridge looked quiet, but the torrential rain that week hasn’t deterred the students and groups of mates who make up the core attendance at the Fest, whose wonderful volunteers have been battling to prevent the first drowning at a festival since Carluke in 1986.

Nice weather for newts.

It’s 9:08 as I stand with a pint glass at a random bar. I decide I’m only staying for a couple of random pints as there’s a pub I want to visit before the 10:35 back to Waterbeach where it’s possible Mum will here me put the key in the door.

If in doubt, go for the beer the last punter had. Always works.

Ooh, a local beer from Somersham, a Fen Edge village that accounts for a decent number of my blog views, oddly.

Great head from the barrel, tasty and chewy, but Ivo’s She Keeps It Nice has a touch of sharpness about it that I can’t explain (NBSS 2.5).

No seating inside, and vertical drinking ain’t for me, which is why I prefer pubs. So I keep walking and outside is a quagmire.

Really, a fantastic effort to put this show on. I nip back for a second Fen Edge pint, deciding against a pint of Pastore’s sours in favour of a Burwell beer. It’s a while since I wrote about Burwell, another unassuming east Cambs village.

What a contrast. No head on Stefans’ Muhle, which seems a euphemism too far, but a wondrously chewy and complex Bavarian style wheat beer (NBSS 4) that showed, at fests as well as pubs, there’s a cask lottery still worth playing.

I didn’t see anyone I knew, and (unlike in pubs) it’s on your own hard to strike up conversations with random strangers who have largely come with mates.

In and out in 24 minutes. Time for a pub.