One of my readers, Hughie, lives in Bedford, which is just over 20 miles from where I live, but, I must admit, is a place I rarely visit. As of yesterday, though, I'm quite jealous of Hughie because I found out that Bedford's twin town is Bamberg, possibly the finest beer town in the World.
I don't think various rauchbiers are available in your average corner shop in town, but the spring festival certainly appears to be an occasion where the beer flows freely if the pictures in the article are anything to go by.
I'm not sure why Bedford is the chosen twin town of our beer loving cousins from Germany. I would imagine Bamberg should be able to do much, much better than choose the home of Charles Wells. Burton-on-Trent would surely have been a better choice.
Actually in a delicious twist of irony I read that one of Burton's twin towns is called Rochefort, but is no relation to the Belgian monastery. It's a funny Old World.
