A beer festival in Ilfracombe

By the time we got to the Ilfracombe beer festival at the twin-chimney Landmark theatre, a high, cool, breeze and spitting rain had sent the stragglers inside, where the bar had already sold 3,600 pints in a weekend.

Charmain Lovett, the festival organiser, poured us each a half of Golden Pig, a tasty product of North Devon’s superb Country Life Brewery. She was jovial — and wearing a crown of leaves from the earlier pagan parade.

The festival had started on Friday last week and when we arrived, late on Monday afternoon, the bar had already sold 50 barrels of beer and the 33 remaining barrels gradually emptied as the day went on. There was a Sunday-ish end-of-the-road feeling to proceedings when we arrived, which continued when we took a stroll around the town to get food; up the hill past the boarded-up social club and the almost-deserted streets.

Because real ale is a "live" product, it does not keep for long, and one of the features of the beer festivals I have been to is that the prices tend to go down towards the end of the event. So, when we arrived all pints were £3. Then, a couple of hours later that were £2. And when we leaving, they were £1. The morning after, I’m not sure my brain was entirely grateful for the ramifications of this price deflation.

Each of the beers we had was singular. An ale called Devonshire, also made by Bideford’s Country Life, had been the most popular beer, Charmaine said. Luckily for me, the Devonshire had all been drunk. Lucky because Devonshire has a challenging alcohol content of 10%.

Instead we had a try of Anniversary Ale, from the Branscombe Vale brewery in Seaton. The notes say it is a "well balanced amber-coloured bitter", which is, I have to say, quite true. I see I have scrawled "a splendid ale" in my notes.

Outside, a handful of people were bravely making the best of the dank weather, including some children on a bouncy castle, which was deflated and taken away while we were inside the Landmark theatre, in a slightly muggy room, listening to a musical folk duo called Fiddlebix.

We each enjoyed a glorious half of Golden Seahawk from the Cotleigh brewery in Wivilescombe while Fiddlebix — man with guitar and woman with fiddle — performed a version of the Dire Straits epic Romeo and Juliet. Then the guitarist said: "I’m going to play another Mongolian tune" and my friend appeared with two halves of Cavalier Ale, made by the Clearwater Brewery. He tasted it and said: "You can tell it’s from Torrington".

Unfortunately it was dark and "the burger man" had gone home when we buffooned out towards the bus stop. My friend fell asleep on the journey home while I was thinking of ways to describe beer that didn’t involve the word "splendid". The next morning, I was again faced with the strange fact that I had drank "only" "about" four pints ("about" eight halves) but felt like a million pain devils were stabbing miniature wands of misery in to the back of my eyeballs. William Blake said the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. Well if the palace of wisdom is a nausea-rocked place of mindless horror at 7am on a weekday, he was, in a way, spot on.