Beer tastings in Ludlow

Friday night we went to the first event in the beer festival and it was the beer tasting, a great way to start a weekend!  One of the things you have to remember here with what appears to be a fixation on beer is that beer over here is like wine in other countries.  We have wine tastings, they have beer tastings;  we have wineries popping up all over the place, they have had micro-breweries for centuries.  We go to restaurants for a nice quiet evening; they go to pubs to visit with friends and have a rip-roaring good time.  The pub has been the center of the community and a way station for travelers since the 1300s, maybe earlier and frequently was part of the abbey.

At this tasting there were over 50 breweries represented showcasing over 140 beers.  That's pretty hard to do but we tried our best!  The picture above was soon after the tasting opened.  Several hours later when we left it was shoulder to shoulder!  The picture below is taken looking down between the two rows of kegs and is the cooling system of water running through tubes to the thermal blankets covering each keg.  They really know their stuff here!

Fish and chips for dinner and off to bed for the festival and walking on Saturday.

Saturday held good old English weather for us - cold and rainy.  Amazingly, in all our trips over here, we've not experienced the weather that is England's reputation, so we considered this kind of fun.  Muddy, rainy, lots of people, castle, kiosks of sausages, sweets, breads, and of course, the beer which was still available.  Touring the castle was great fun and I mentioned it in the last blog, so I was determined to tour a large square home right outside the castle walls reported to have Elizabeth I interiors.  I went alone and the man who answered the door looked like someone out of The Adams Family!  I thought, oh boy, I'm in trouble here.  He had a horrendous wig on about the color of dried wheat that was straight and long, hanging over his eyes and collar.  His skin color was about the same and he had red, rosy cheeks and watery eyes.  But after telling me what rooms I could look at, he disappeared behind a door, much to my relief, into a private area.  (Maybe he was a ghost!)  

The fright was well worth it, though, because this house was a treasure trove.  The paneling and windows and floor boards were definitely original Tudor and it was occupied during Elizabeth's time by some of "the richest people in England", to quote my ghostly host.  After touring it with my mouth gaped open in astonishment most of the time, I went and found John and insisted he pay the £3 to tour and photograph it.  I'm adding a couple of pictures here and later in the week John will add more to his facebook page and www.theklube.smugmug.com that I mentioned in another blog. 

Saturday evening we went to a concert at the church down the street from the B&B.  We had noticed the sign on the church gate for the Ludlow Symphony and listed were a number of ambitious selections for an amateur orchestra, so we decided to go.  They were excellent and our admission was only £7 each.  That's the OAP price or senior, OAP standing for Old Age People!  Not very politically correct but we're not complaining!




Sunday morning we stayed in Ludlow to hear the church bells scheduled to peal from 10:30 to 11:30 then we were off to Stokesay Castle, the village of Much Wenlock and Iron Bridge where the industrial revolution started and a couple of other sites.  We didn't get it all in because we ran out of time.  I have also run out of blogging time because we are packing to take off for canal boating for a week.  I have no idea if we will find any way to blog or answer emails for the next week.  If you would like to get an idea what we are doing, google "narrowboats england" and you'll get a good idea.