Rural Beer

As I mentioned in a previous post, we spent a couple of days in the Cotswolds this weekend celebrating a friends birthday. I was looking forward to (among other things) take the time to try some local beers, but, try as we might, I totally failed! I have to conclude that the Cotswolds is a (relative) craft beer desert! We only visited a couple of pubs in a couple of different villages but none sold anything remotely non-mainstream, not even a local real-ale. It was Carling, Tribute, Peroni or Guinness et al or nothing, very disappointing. I must admit I find it rather odd that you can walk into a pub and order from a selection of over 50 gins but there's only 3 beers on tap (brown, yellow and black!) based on the number of customers that consume these drinks, surely it should be the other way around? I'll leave you with a photo of some local Barley in a field being the closest we got to a local beer! I'm sure a more dedicated and intrepid explorer could have found something interesting somewhere, but the rest of us are getting used to the pervasiveness of good craft in and around larger towns and cities these days, still, I guess it's a business opportunity for someone; it's not as if the good Berger's of Chipping Campden are short of a few bob after all!