As usual, I’ve been to Walsall Beer Festival. It’s seen a chnage of venue this year, to Walsall College, thanks to Walsall MBC making the town hall too restrictive and expensive.

I’ve got mixed feelings over the move: the beer was as good as ever, but the College atrium is devoid of atmosphere, and it’s one of those modern, currently fashionable wood, metal and glass buildings. It made the place noisy, and the band sounded terrible- though any band would struggle in that space. Conversely, the food was OK, well priced, and very well organised, there was somewhere to sit (Yay!) and if the venue allows the festival to continue and be well attended, that has to be a good thing- and it was very well attended. Big thanks to Walsall CAMRA for organising such a good event, and for Walsall College for providing the venue, when our council seem determined to kill off all use of the town hall.

On a side note, isn’t the new Tesco (all hail Walsall’s retail overlords) a hideous pile of shite?