Mahinda’s Little World

I was writing a good long post about Shiny’s stag do, and a visit to the 3 Rivers Brewery…but I forgot to save it in Notepad. Not normally a problem, as I’d left my PC on overnight…but, for some reason, it got rebooted.

Bugger.

I really cannot be arsed typing all that out again. So…

How Many Rivers?

Three. Two shall not be enough, and four shall be too many. Five shall be deemed Right Out.

It was a CAMRA U30 trip out to the 3 Rivers Brewery in Reddish, deepest darkest Stockport.

Andrew, the Assistant Brewer there, is one of our own — the youngest CAMRA bar manager (that is, he runs a bar at a CAMRA beer festival) in the country I believe, and general good bloke.

So, for the princely sum of five English pounds, we got a tour, three tasty pints, and some lovely hotpot. Superb!

3 Rivers is a rapidly-expanding microbrewery, sited on a business park in the middle of a residential area. They’ve shoehorned their beers into many a Manchester/Stockport pub, and are even exporting to the States nowadays.

The best bit, however, is the members’ club they’ve set up on the top floor of their unit — it’s got a very well-stocked bar, dartboard and Sky TV…and then a seperate little room with comfy sofas. The beer’s cheap, too — £1.20 for a pint of their standard bitter, I think it was. It’s great!

They’re closing membership soon, at something like the 500 mark. If I lived closer, I’d have signed up already.

Shiny’s Stag

The weekend saw Shiny Richard’s stag do. Don’t ask why he’s called ‘Shiny’ — he just is!

This came in several distinct sections:

• Karoake at Orchid Lounge

  Thankfully, I only caught the tail end of this, as it was on Friday night. Fortunately, they’re a fairly talented bunch of singers, so it wasn’t too bad. Off to Shere Khan for a rather disappointing curry afterwards, and then home.

• Madtrax

  After a very welcome bacon butty oriented breakfast at Pete’s place, we traipsed our way across the country to Swinefleet, near Doncaster, for an afternoon of Madtrax. These are basically outdoor off-road buggies — sort of like a cross between go-karts and quad bikes — that you ride around on a muddy up-and-down track, complete with a jump!

  It was definitely fun, although the fact that you just planted your foot on the accelerator for the entire lap, and final times were separated by a few tenths of a second, took a bit of the gloss off it. I did my usual trick of being good at the start, then failing to improve. Holker won it in the end, followed by Cattac and then Lees.

  I’ve got to thank Holker for driving me there and back — I spent most of the journey asleep!

• Dogs

  Back to Manc, then on to Belle Vue for some serious dog racing. We had a fancy 3-course meal there…which was a bit disappointing, really, but we were all absolutely ravenous by then!

  Then, much betting was done. Holker and I took it reasonably seriously on our table (which we shared with Shiny himself), and didn’t do too badly — I reckon I finished up on the night, and Holker wasn’t far off. However, we did all put 50p in for a "table bet" at the start, shared with Justin, Al and Jem on the next table over…and instantly won £15! Holker and I continued with the table betting — by the end of the night, each 50p stake had grown to £4.70. How good is that?!

• Walkabout

  Where would any self-respecting stag party end up in Manchester. Yup, Teasers! Unfortunately, it seems to have closed down, so we ended up in Walkabout instead. Fairly dirty and drunken, really. And that’s where I shall stop
   

There are two sets of photos on Pete’s Facebook site (thankfully, there’s no need to register):

• Part 1: Karoake, curry and off-road racing
• Part 2: Dogs and more dogs

Sunday was spent feeling distinctly "Sunday Mahinda".

I’m up to Edinburgh tomorrow for Shiny and Suse’s wedding. It should be a good one!