The Winding Wheel Beer Festival, Chesterfield.

The famous crooked spire.

Last weekend was a great opportunity to venture out of town on a beer hunting adventure. On a road trip organised by my old man we ventured beyond the borders of Yorkshire and into the lesser known wilderness known as the midlands, to a pleasant market town called Chesterfield. 

Chesterfield is a splendid place, not too posh, nor too Northern, but to basically sum it up; It has the famous crooked spire (see above). Thornbridge Brewery beer is nearly everywhere and there are very few charity shops. But I digress..  

Beer festival ground floor.

The annual Winding Wheel beer festival is a CAMRA event encompassing three floors of The Winding Wheel Theatre in Chesterfield. The beer list was pretty extensive with the majority of beers from breweries I had never heard of. Thornbridge Brewery have a separate cask and keg bar. 

Given we were joining on the second day of the festival the beer range had been thinned out a bit. The new highly sought after Thornbridge The Union, 6% IPA  on keg had sold out. Sadly so had a fair few others on the hit list. However, despite this a pretty diverse array of quality beers were still available. 

Thornbridge bar.

The first beer to grab my attention was from a Blackpool based micro brewery; Pool Brewing That's Just How I Feel. Mango, pine and citrus dominate the palate and the mouthfeel of it was fairly heavy for a 3.8% blonde. Then wandering onto the middle floor, Hang The Elephant Van Milder at 5.4% was a strong mild with character. Rich and chocolatey with oily coffee and liquorice throughout. 

After this Neighbourhood Brew Placebo was a 4% blonde ale with a soft grainy feel and some spicy citrus notes. It almost had some resemblance to an American wheat but on cask. Wickham House Jester at 4.5% was amber hued and closer to a classic British pale ale. Plenty of fruit and malt. 

For the grand finale of the evening Brampton brewery Menin Gate was the obvious choice. It's not often you find a 7.4% Belgian style Dubbel on cask. A class beer indeed it's deep amber depths opening with boozy apples and pear. Lots of caramelised malt and winter fruits lingering in the finish.

After this it was time to say goodbye to the Winding Wheel Beer festival. It's always great to visit new places and break the habit of going to the same beer festivals every year. Thank's again to my old man for organising the adventure.