This morning I dragged my hungover body onto my bicycle for a bike ride…to a brewery! (Hair of the dog and all that.) The ride was organised as part of the Dark Star Hop Fest.
Brighton must have known I was suffering because it kindly surprised me with a beautiful, sunny morning. A whole bunch of us met at The Evening Star pub, in whose cellar Dark Star first started brewing beer in 1994. We set off in two groups (one fast and one slow, I’ll let you guess which I was in..)
The route we took was along the coast to Shoreham and up through Steyning and Ashurst to Partridge Green. It was a route not short on pretty views, including the River Adur, the Sussex Downs (of course), the old cement works and limestone quarry in Shoreham, and a whole bunch of green, green fields.
On arrival at the Dark Star brewery there was FREE BEER and a free t-shirt. Perhaps I am easily pleased, but I think that’s a pretty sweet deal. There were a load of guys from the brewery around if anyone wanted a conversation about the complexities of brewing, or the differences between Centennial, Liberty, Cascade and Citra hops…
It was good to chat to some other cyclists over lunch at The Partridge, just down the road from the brewery itself. After lunch (and a few more pints for some) we all headed home in various directions. My route was 33 miles all in all, which I’ll take as a warm for tomorrow’s 50 miles at Cycletta!
In conclusion then, beer and bicycles were born to be friends.
Not a bad Saturday at all :-)
The ride there
Freebies!
Posing with my pint and t-shirt..
Beer!
That’s actually a pint of coke. I didn’t want to wobble off my bike.
Hopfest banner at The Partridge
(Thanks to @themanfromicon for a few of the pictures and for keeping me company on the ride back to Brighton!)
Oh and kids – don’t drink lots of beer and then ride a bike (vice versa is fine..)