Purple Orange
On Moderation
Virgin's offering was RedWillow Tilting Ale.
RedWillow is based in Macclesfield and run by a chap called Toby Mckenzie. He was an IT director for a company in London and used to commute down there most days on Virgin.
Eventually he decided to quit the rat race and he and his wife set up the micro-brewery producing some cracking beers. He eventually persuaded Virgin to sell his beers and brewed Tilting Ale exclusively for them.
It looks like Avanti dropped them when they took over, but after a bit of a hoo-hah they have reinstated it.
RedWillow’s Tilting Ale returns to Avanti West Coast - Beer Today
A pale ale is being served on Avanti West Coast rail services after it was brought back by popular demand. Tilting Ale, made specially for the train operator by RedWillow Brewery, in Macclesfield, went back on sale this month. It has a loyal fanbase, with many customers asking if it was going to...beertoday.co.uk
Don't be fooled by a beer's strength - a low gravity beer can have much more flavour than a mid range beer of 4-5%, especially when it is brewed by a brewery which knows what it is doing. Cloudwater is one of these that brews cracking if sometime expensive beers.
In regard to drinking on the train, in my experience it is often people getting on the train already worse for wear that are the problem. Some will try to continue to drink with booze brought on board - and sorry, but I've seen this with plenty of football fans - and then can turn from boisterous to downright ugly very quickly. Racegoers are the same after the event and are to be avoided at all costs - I have binned trips to York and Chester when I discovered the races were on.
And try the 2143 MAN - Stoke stopper on Friday / Saturday night! Not often seen alcohol being consumed on this one but many passengers are well tanked up before they get on board. Interestingly the 2201 Crewe stopper does not suffer from this problem.
Good, I’m glad it’s still being stocked. Given it is a Friday I will be performing my weekly lockdown ritual of buying a few beers for this evening and some Redwillow might go down nicely with my steak & chips!
