A trip to the seaside is as traditional for a Londoner on a bank holiday as eggs are to Easter. Luckily, for the beer lover, in recent years we have had the Thanet Beer Festival to look forward to in Margate on Easter Friday and Saturday.
Once described as "ugly" and "scruffy" by the elegant, Bob Geldof, Margate has indeed seen better days. The beer festival though is held in the Winter Gardens, the town's famous concert hall that has hosted all of the famous variety acts over the last 100 years from Laurel and Hardy to Ken Dodd to Lemar.
This week's star turn is over 200 real ales racked up on one long bar - surely the longest in Kent.
The side bar overlooks the sea and the usual April weather brings an atmospheric swell to watch from the comfort of the warm bar.
The venue is about a mile from the station and an engaging sight is that of a couple of hundred beer festival types (if you know what I mean) pouring off the train and marching in quick step to the festival at a quarter to opening time. "Blimey, where are they all going, Dad" I once heard from a small boy.
This is as enjoyable a day at the seaside as you can get.
NB Watch out for railway engineering works on Saturday
2 comments:
By jove missus, what a beautiful day, that's another fine mess, etc, etc...
Who's Lemar?
Typical bloody bank holiday weather, though. Bah humbug.
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