Understanding

Ivory's brother BJ is in the country for the summer, so I'm up north to lend him my expert advice (with Tom's help) on getting acquainted with proper English beer.

With that in mind, today we went to Cockermouth to visit the Jennings brewery and engage in a pub crawl of West Cumbrian proportions. (For the sake of clarity, that's a pub crawl where failing to address a mate as "marra", or not accusing a flagging friend of being "a fucking jam-eater", is distinctly frowned upon).

Plenty of food, plenty of beer, plenty of ice cream, and in addition BJ was chuffed to get himself an old-fashioned pewter tankard from Jennings. But the highlight was undoubtedly having Tom lead us around town with the aid of his magical CAMRA book, revealing Cockermouth's finest pubs as if by wizardry. Here, in the beer garden of "1761", Tom explains with military precision where our itinerary will take us. Simultaneously, Ivory practises the "that's nice, dear!" expression that is both crucial and intuitive to all English wives.