Alcester

On the way to our CAMRA weekend in Tewkesbury, we stopped for lunch in this delightful Warwickshire town. The Holly Bush is an old coaching inn on which a lot of money has obviously been spent. The beer was in splendid form with Purity Gold, served in a branded Purity glass certainly hitting the spot, as did the ploughman's. A word here about the staff. Just fantastic, dealing with 23 of us with smiles, efficiency and good nature. If I lived there I'd be back. A lot.

Of course perfection, while eagerly sought and maybe found is not enough for the dedicated beer type. With Tyson and E, in tow we nipped along the road to the Three Tuns where raging thirsts were slaked by more excellent beer from Purity and another fantastic barmaid. The welcome was all you could want and it does make such a difference.

A little bit of a first next for us. A visit to a winery. Three Choirs is a 80 acre outfit set in rolling hills in Gloucestershire and produces a number of rather good wines from mostly German grapes. It also has a brewery which we were able to glimpse through a glass fronted room, while the expensive wine making kit was there for us to prod and inspect. Particularly interesting was the process of removing sediment from sparkling wine. The samples of wine were small and took a lot of will power not to knock back in two sips.




It was a remarkably sober lot that checked into the Hope Pole in Tewkesbury. That wasn't to last.