An epic tale of non delivered beer in YorkshireCumbria.
Over Easter I was away staying in a bunkbarn in Sedbergh with lots of friends. I'd arranged for the Dent brewery to deliver a firkin of Aviator sometime on Thursday afternoon, but by eight in the evening this had failed to materialise. Drastic measures were called for, as my chums were getting thirsty. Getting someone to answer the phone at a miocrobrewery on Good Friday is more or less impossible, on account of no-one being there, but some webbery searching turned up the phone number for the George and Dragon in Dent, which is their brewery tap. I phoned them, they said they'd phone someone else who would phone someone else and could I call back in half an hour. Thirty one minutes later I called back but they were still waiting for their person to call them. An hour passes, in which I peel some spuds. I call again. Success! Joe is at the brewery and he calls me. Had I ordered the beer? Why yes, I had. It'll need time to settle. Ooh, not good, we're thirsty people, can you do it "bright". Joe goes off to find an empty clean cask and calls back. Yes he can.
I leap into the motor with a roll of notes in my back pocket, postcode on the sat nav. Twisty lanes take me to Dentdale, through the v picturesque vilage of Dent and I end up at what is patently The Wrong Place. I reverse down a narrow drive way, looking for anything that resembles a brewery. A bit more driving in narrow lanes and, against all the Bloke Rules, I flag some one down and ask for directions. We wind down our respective windows. "Do you know where the brewery is?" "The brewery? I do know where it is. I rent them the land it's on" Detailed directions follow, with no indication of distance, then tales of how he supped the first pint they made and the information that the brewery gets its water from a spring on his land. "Am I getting Aviator?" he asks. "A bottlle perhaps". "No, a barrel". "Eeh".
I finally find the brewery and Joe. It's the next door farm to the cottage I tried earlier, carefully camoflauged by a sodding great pile of beer barrels. We load the firkin into the car and I hand over a hundred notes. For 72 pints.
I get back to Sedburgh and we do manly things with hammers, taps and hand whittled spiles. The beer is good. Really good.
