Beer and Lazy days

I had this weekend sort of planned out.   Saturday I would visit the Helsby beer festival with a few friends.  There we would sample some nice local beers, ciders...etc.  Maybe get a bit drunk and then I would go home to sleep off the booze.  Sunday would be a nice ride with the North Cheshire Clarion and the rest of the day would be spent cleaning the house/car/bike and then relaxing infront of the telly. Sounded like a plan...but with all best laid plans, things go wrong.

At 12pm I boarded what turned out to be the last train of the day from a crowded Warrington bank quay station.  It did strike me as odd that this train would be the last one considering it was only lunchtime.  I remember the words now from the  burley minimum waged platform attendant, "All services on this line will be suspended after this train.  You'll have to get a bus back to the station.".  Essential maintenence they call it.  I call it essentially spending money you want next year in your budget and given we are weeks away from the financial year end, this would also explain why most of the roads around Warrington are being "dug up".

Working men

After 20 minutes I arrived and met up with everyone else at the Helter Skelter pub.  From here we got a taxi to Helsby sports and social club.  A taxi ride that cost £7.  Public transport has never been so expensive.   Helsby sports and social club can only be described as a cross between the set of Grange hill and the inside of a nuclear bunker the council would inhabit should we ever have a nuclear war.  A multitude of old men, all sat round small round tables looked up at us as we entered.  Their thread veined faces and red noses - probably all caused by years of drinking at these festivals - regarded us with curiosity.  As we paid for our "beer tokens" they all returned to what they were doing, except one who continued to stare, tapping a domino on the table. 

Steve commented that this place resembled a canteen from a Stalinist factory.  I thought it looked like the cantina from StarWars.  I waited for the rather large lady behind the bar to state that "We dont't serve your kind here".   The whole place smelt of wet dog and toilets.  The carpet, sticky and the decor pure green with a hint of nicotine. Awesome place for a beer festival.

Alcoholic library

I approached the serving bench.  Behind it was a rack of barrels all adorned with the name of the beer contained within.  Monikers such as "Arseholes finger" and "Jap's eye dance" sounded interesting. Reading the accompanying festival booklet I noticed that all of them infact were beers I had never heard off. Probably stock that couldn't be sold to pubs.  Sounded great...  I ordered a glass of "trench foot".  The bartender took one of my tokens and replaced it with a half pint glass filled with what looked like the contents of a catheter bag from someone with kidney failure. A sly smile on his face betrayed the fact that I'd probably ordered the worst they had on offer.

Choose your poison

It smelt foul....I took a swig...Jesus H Christ!.  My tongue curled into the roof of my mouth.  The booklet blurb read "This beer is made from golden hops with a lemony citrus flavour".  Yeah it was citrus alright, the same taste you would get from downing a bottle of lemon fairy liquid.

 In fact it tasted like a raw lemon mixed with bicarb of soda.  Not wanting to waste it though - the tickets were expensive - I quickly downed it and moved onto another beer.

 "Liquid Gravy please", the barkeep took another token and handed me my glass filled with a thick black porter.  This tasted pretty damn good.  I soon consumed the syrupy goodness and approached the festival bench again.

10 Print "Hello beer" ; 20 Goto 10

As you can tell the evening followed a set way.  A loop which continued untill all of the tokens were spent.  A funky algorithim of the following instructions:   Order strange beer, hand over token, drink and repeat. I soon ran out of tokens so bought some more.  It was five hours later when I realised that I was pretty damn drunk.  My stomach made an unearthly groaning noise.  It was time to stop, but I had one more token left.  So I ordered one of the "returning masters of the festivals".  A nice beer called "Trashy Blonde".  I didn't feel 100% at this moment and was hoping that the beer, like its namesake suggested, wasn't going to be silky smooth going down but then leave me with a bad feeling and a rash.  I could only manage on mouthful....I couldn't finish it.  A truly awfull beer that appeared to leave an unpleasant foam in the mouth.  Gross.

Hometime

Too much of a good thing is a bad thing

We left the festival in another taxi.  When we arrived back in Frodsham I bid farewell to my friends and dizzily walked to the bus stop where I would board the coach that replaced the train.

I got there just in time as the "coach from the 80's"  was just about to leave and thankfully I boarded just as the door hissed shut.  One bit of luck was that it didn't cost me anything at all because I didn't buy a ticket to Frodsham and the bus didn't sell tickets. As Charlie Sheen would say "Winner!".

So, this morning the plan was to join the club cycling. The route posted looked amazing, taking in the steep climb in Frodsham up to the Belmont - pretty steep if I remember- and then to the Summertrees cafe.  However I awoke feeling ill.  The multitude of beers that had been swilling around my gut over night had left me feeling like a dried out husk.  Rain was pounding outside the window as well so I decided against it and drifted back to sleep. 

Pretty bad form to be honest given the Cheshire Cat is just two weeks away and based on my performance last week at Mow cop I need more hill work.  My virus appears to be going so, fingers crossed, I'll get some commuting in this week, plus I'm gonna take the bike into work and get some miles in at lunch. 

No ride stats this week, so instead here is a funny video mash up of the recent Charlie Sheen meltdown video.  Enjoy.