Thornbridge 2009

The Garden Party

Sun 5^th July 2009. Our coach arrived in Humberstone Gate for a 9.30 departure with the Hinckley & Bosworth members already on board. A curious diversion then ensued on the way to Loughborough where the Loughborough members seemed to be scattered all over town. After rounding them up we headed off, crammed in like sardines to Thornbridge for the Garden Party and beer!

Thornbridge Hall is impressive and dates from the 12th century. We decided to walk around the grounds first and sample the Lower and Upper Terraces followed by the Carp Pond and gardens. We visited the surprisingly small brewery and then settled down to have a beer at one of the two outside bars. This is when the day turned to one of slight disbelief with some very average Thornbridge beers being dispensed at £3 per pint in plastic glasses as you would probably expect. Considering the difference in the strength of Wild Swan at 3.5% and Jaipur at 5.9% I am somewhat at a loss to explain the sheer greed of charging £3 per pint for both. The other beers were the new Cradle Silk 4.0% and Seaforth at 5.9%, also on sale was their Lord Marples.

Thornbridge frolics! - pictures Paul Summers and Andy Sales.

After 3 hours of beautiful sunshine, face painting, ice cream and bank breaking beer it was time to leave.

More pleasant scenery and we arrived at the Old Poets Corner in Ashover where we had a choice of being dropped off there for an extended stay or continue to the Nettle Inn at Milltown. As I had not been to either I stayed on to Milltown.

Nettle Inn - Andy Sales.

The Nettle Inn is a fantastic real country pub but the beer choice did not do the pub any justice with two Marstons' beers and Bradfield Farmers Bitter. The GBG entry has no mention of Marstons' beers and it was very disappointing to see them when I was expecting the full range of Bradfield. Having sat in the beautiful beer garden which even contained its own post box, we headed back to Ashover.

The Old Poets is home to Ashover Ales with the brewery located next door. Somewhat of a surprise was that only two of their beers were on sale; Light Rale 3.8% and  Poets Tipple 4.1%. Other beers included Bateman's XB, Wells' Bombardier, Black Hole No Escape, Kelham Island Pale Rider, Castle Rock Elsie Mo, Wirksworth Brewery Cruckbeam and Oakham Inferno.

The last stop for the day was Derby where we were dropped at The Royal Standard, the brewery tap for Derby Brewing Co. Most people visited this and one of the other nearby pubs such as the recently reopened Silk Mill, the Dolphin or the Flowerpot.

Thanks once again to Keith for organising a pleasant day out and to Dennis for his reversing skills.

Andy Sales

This page last updated: July 13, 2009

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