Diary - Day 4

The 4th day of the trip proved to be an interesting and somewhat eventful one. We were on the road a little late, the result of home comforts and the unwillingness to leave them behind, but the weather was fine and there was little to complain about. Except hayfever that is, the plus side of dismal weather at this time of year for me is that it keeps me from sneezing my face off.


We took the B3188 and then the B3224 on our way to Taunton, a route that tends to be pretty quick but not lacking a few climbs as it runs along the edge of the Brendons. The late start meant we didn't have much time to hang around and we headed on towards Glastonbury after a quick lunch. Our first brewery visit was to be Moor Brewery just outside Street and a windy route through the Somerset countryside found us at our target half and hour late. A photographer was waiting and the resulting photo appeared in the West Somerset Gazette along with an article a week later, a nice bonus.

Plenty moor can be read about our time with Justin Hawke and the brewery by following this link - Moor Beer - but the condensed version is that we were impressed by the quality of beer and found ourselves enjoying the quick look around and chat with Justin. Annoyingly we had to move on pretty soon as another brewery awaited, but we had a very early contender for 'beer of the trip' in Revival - a 3.8% beer with far more flavour than it has any right to have.

Leaving Moor Brewery behind we went through Wedmore on our way to Cheddar, just short of which was Cheddar Ales. You can of course read all about that visit by clicking this link - Cheddar Ales - but the shortened version is that Cheddar Ales is a new brewery owned and run by Jem Ham, a former Butcombe employee. They currently have 2 beers, both of which are certainly decent, Potholer being the flagship and more popular beer. We tried both and had a good long chat with Jem and Toby before reluctantly moving on. Jem is on the left below, Toby on the right, the bikes being ours of course.


So all that we had to do now was the couple of miles to Cheddar and a campsite therein. We found a campsite but definitely wont be using the dump ever again. It was technically a 'holiday park' and cost £18 for a hard and ragged pitch. Not happy about that at all. We wandered around Cheddar looking for a pub, but ended up eating sarnies from the petrol station and drinking the bottles that we had been given by Jem in the campsite. Not an ideal end to a good day, but it was dry for a change and there was little to moan about throughout most of the day.

This is what a cyclist at the end of the day suffering from hayfever looks like:



Day 4 review

mileage = 64
breweries visited = 2
national parks = 1

Pints of Ale = 6ish

• Revival (x2) - Moor Brewery
• Potholer (a few) - Cheddar Ales
• Best Bitter (x2) - Cheddar Ales