Wetherspoons Devon Beer Festival

3:30 The London Inn, Torquay.
Hiya all, yes Wetherspoons are holding a Devon Beer Festival, featuring the best ales from breweries around Devon. My challenge is to get to as many of the 19 pubs in the Devon area as we can in the next 91/2 hours, hmmmmm.
Well we're starting at the London Inn on Torquay's harbourside the range of ales is quite extensive so i won't try listing them. Our ale of choice is T Spoons an ale specially brewed for spoons by Teignworthy brewery, it's a pale ale with a full bodied flavour, and is going down very well, stay tuned for our next stop, we're heading Exeter way, then on down to Exmouth.

6:20 The Powder Monkey, Exmouth
OK we've reached stop number to on our treck where we've decided to have a beer 'n' burger meal. Thankfully they include the festival ales in the deal so to wash our burgers down we've got Exeter Old Bitter from the Exe Valley Brewery, a smooth well-hopped strong ale with hoppy, malty tastes and bitter aftertaste, and seems to be a perfect choice to go with the burger (it's keeping my normally chatty friend Steve very quiet whilst i type. Next stop back to Exeter.

21:19 Train between Exeter and Paignton
Oooopppsss. Well we stopped at two pubs in Exeter, The Chavalier Inn and the Georges Meeting House, trying two different ales Meadow and Topsham and Exminster breweries Ferryman both very enjoyable ales. Sadly though we were quite tight on time and consequently missed our bus down to Newton Abbot by about 30 seconds (it passed us as we entered the bus station) so now we're on the train heading towards Paignton (we gotta change at Newton so might get time to pop for a quicky there) where we'll visit the Issac Merritt and the Talk of the Town (a recent addition to the wetherspoons name).


22.02 Train change and a brisk walk
The train has just left Newton Abbot heading for Paignton, we had to change trains at Newton so we decided on a short sprint to the Richard Hopkins for a swift half, asking the barmaid for two halves of which ever festival ales she chose she returned with a Bays Devon Dumpling and a Teignworthy T Spoons, both very good ales which were dispatched a little faster than they were poured not ideal but our aim is to visit as many Spoons pubs as we can tasting a festival ale in each then it was a sprint back to the train and on to Paignton.

22.45 The Issac Merritt , Paignton
Well we have made it to Paignton and the Issac Merritt, i was gonna write this post from the Talk of the Town but it isn't open yet silly me i really should pay more attention.
Anyway we are sat enjoying a pint (well one each, i don't do sharing) of O'Hanlons Red Ale which has hints of ribena and toffee with a wine-like smoothness making it very easy to drink, almost too easy. Next stop back to Torquay probably the London Inn first and finishing at the Green Ginger.

1:30 am Green Ginger, taxi and home.
So the end of the evening and also the end of our treck has arrived, intentions were to call in at the London Inn then finish at the Ginger however trade at the London dictated otherwise, we got there at 11:50 to be told that they were closing as it had been quiet, so we about turned and head over to the ginger and finished our journey with a pint of Moondance now after a taxi home i'm contemplating falling into bed. The tally for our journey was 7 pubs 7 ales (i think) and almost 100 miles covered all in the search for real ale, and now i'm off to bed, goodnight.