This time next week, my thighs will be burning, the backs of my legs will feel as if they’ve been on a rack and my shoulders will feel as if I’ve been in an Olympic weightlifting competition. All this will be the result of what is arguably the most serious physical exercise I take all year.
At the time, it feels like madness but it’s one of the most enjoyable weeks of my year. It’s the week I spend working at Tamworth Beer Festival (brought to you by the Lichfield, Sutton Coldfield and Tamworth branch of the Campaign for Real Ale).
It’s the 18th edition of the annual Tamworth Beer Festival this year, starting at the Assembly Rooms at 11am on Thursday and running from 11am-11pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
While I was still in what Mrs W insists on calling ‘a proper job’, I was only able to help out on Thursday and Friday, serving behind the bar during the morning and lunchtime sessions before dashing off to work.
For the last two years, though, I have been available all week and have seen just how much effort it takes to put on a moderately-sized and always successful beer festival.
The action will start at 9am on Monday when a team of scaffolders arrives to assemble the wooden structure on which 100 barrels of real ale will rest for the next week. At the same time, brewers from all over the United Kingdom start arriving. It might be one 72-pint barrel in the back of a car, or ten barrels on the back of a lorry. It all gets the same careful treatment, lifted gently on to the scaffolding, or hauled up there by two beefy men (and me), then tapped and left to settle until the Festival opens on Thursday morning.
Last year, a dedicated team of volunteers had everything ready by Wednesday lunchtime, giving us time to raise a glass and a nargis kebab in honour of the late, great Chris Fudge, supremo of our beer festival for so many years who was tragically taken from us far too young by a brain tumour in the summer of 2010.
Last year, we really felt we were doing it for Fudgy. I’m sure the same mindset will spur us on this year.
There are always last-minute panics, though. It would help if the glasses were delivered a little earlier this year, while the moment when the lorry containing the cooling system almost reversed into the side wall of the Assembly Rooms will stay in my mind for a while.
Nevertheless, there’s nothing like walking out of the side door of the venue at 10.30 on Thursday morning and seeing a queue of 50 people waiting outside. Invariably, these are the ‘tickers’, familiar faces from beer festivals across the country who will drink their fair share but also pour a decent amount into plastic bottles to be taken away and tested at a later date. I don’t ‘get’ that myself but if it helps promote real ale and our festival, then it’s fine by me.
Their arrival heralds the start of two days of bending up and down at the bar, reaching into the farthest corner of the highest rack or kneeling down into the lowest corner of the lowest rack to serve a half of Church End's latest off-the-wall creation or something new and unheard-of from Devon, Manchester or Scotland.
As a serious supporter of Tamworth FC, one of my favourite times is Saturday lunchtime; thanks to the sainted Dennis Strudwick, who draws up the Conference National fixture list by hand, Tamworth almost invariably have a home game on the afternoon of our festival. This year, that means we’ll be greeting real ale drinkers and supporters of York FC. Given that York are managed by Gary Mills and Darron Gee, who left Tamworth last autumn to move to KitKat Crescent, there should be some lively banter. But it won’t be any more than that - non-league fans and real ale drinkers know how to have a laugh and a drink without going overboard.
As I said, it’s one of the highlights of my year - even if my thighs won’t thank me for it next week.
I hope to see you there at some point over the three days.
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