A ticker is born

Around the 27th Stockport Beer and Cider Festival in 20 beers, give or take a few:

1. Marble Barley Wine
2. Marble Emancipation
3. Red Willow Witless II
4. Fyne Ales Jarl
5. Marble Decadence
6. Red Willow Shameless
7. Bollington Goldenthal
8. Quantum SK2
9. Blackjack King of Clubs
10. Fyne Ales Sublime Stout
11. Marble Bennington
12. Worthington White Shield
13. Fuller’s London Porter
14. Happy Valley Dangerously Dark
15. Fuller’s ESB
16. Fyne Ales Bell Rock & Hop IPA
17. Ilkley Lotus IPA
18. Liverpool Organic Shipwreck IPA
19. Buxton Dark Knights
20. Okell Maclir
JW Lees Manchester Pale Ale
Worth Coppice
St Feuillien Grand Cru (bottle)

1-20: beers I picked out on the programme, in descending order of desirability
In bold: beers I ended up having
In italics: beers that weren’t on

You’ll notice a rather high level of italics, particularly towards the top of the list. I wasn’t entirely expecting all three of the strong Marble beers advertised to be available, but I didn’t expect that none of them would be. I’m gutted to have missed Witless on cask, too, and the Bollington and Quantum beers both sounded rather fine. Looking on the bright side, the top five beers I did have were all excellent; it was particularly good to make the acquaintance of Jarl after all this time, especially as it didn’t disappoint.

Not sure why I didn’t get to the Buxton or Okell beers. Worth Coppice used up a Mild Magic token, as did Marble Bennington. Those are the only two milds on the list, despite my having gone armed with four MM tokens; when you’ve seen 24 milds, you’ve pretty much seen them all. (Except Bennington, which was distinctive – as you’d expect from Marble – and rather fine.) I left my other two tokens lying around for a passing mildophile to snaffle. Lees’ MPA was on the festival charity stall, and it just spoke to me. As for the St Feuillien Grand Cru – which, at 9.5% over a 330ml bottle, was approximately four times as strong as the thirds I’d been drinking upstairs – it was excellent; one of only a handful of beers at the festival whose taste I can still bring to mind. I have to confess, I’d only turned up at the bottle bar in the first place because of a rumour going round that they were accepting MM tokens in exchange for British bottled beer. Not the case, sadly – somebody had got MM tokens confused with volunteers’ tokens. But I was feeling flush, and my tick-list was looking rather sparse – particularly in the skull-splitter department – so paying money for some Wallonian loopy juice seemed like a good idea. As, indeed, it turned out to be.

I’m not moaning about the lack of beers. (Well, maybe just a bit about the Marbles.) I’ve come to the conclusion – if I may address the Festival collectively for a moment – that it’s not you, it’s me. There was some terrific stuff on – as well as the beers I’ve mentioned already, there was Marble Pint, Red Willow Wreckless and Endless, Magic Rock High Wire and Curious, a Dark Star, a couple of Buxtons… I wasn’t tempted by any of it, though. This is partly because of where I live, and partly – I’m afraid to say – because I’m a ticker. And I’d never even realised. The evidence is there, though – the disregard for mild, the thirst for novelty, the disdain for established beers, even the St Feuillien Grand Cru. The shame of it.

What’s to become of me now? What shall I do? Where shall I go? Here, I suppose.

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