I've often wondered what draws people into a love of beer, I'm not talking about an obsessive preoccupation with having the latest beer or following the latest trendy Brewer but an appreciation and enthusiasm for that wonderful drink.

Thinking about it on a personal level takes me back not just to my youth but back to infancy, all of ten years old, of course at the time I had no thoughts about what I was seeing or doing but in later life I recognised it as that initial spark of curiosity.

So let me take you back to Infant School in a small Derbyshire village, I hated School meals and so used to walk down to the elegant Georgian Hotel in the centre of the village where my mother worked in the kitchens. 

There I would sit down and scoff sandwiches, or maybe a child size meal in double quick time before being allowed to roam through the Hotel. With time to kill before returning to School the various staff would keep a friendly eye on me. One happened to be the Hotel Handyman cum Cellarman, a friendly old man called Joe with who was happy for me to tag along carrying his bag of tools and even venturing into the Cellars!

At least once a week there would be a delivery from the Brewery and it always seemed to happen at lunchtime, Joe would unlock the Cellar hatch and position a pile of hessian sacks filled with horsehair directly below the entry. Outside the Draymen would, likewise, position another sack at the side of the wagon. Barrels were then maneuvered to the side and rolled off the edge onto the sack and thence to the Cellar hatch. I seem to remember that this was always accompanied by much shouting between Joe and the Draymen, especially as the barrel dropped into the Cellar. I later knew these barrels to be Hogheads, 56 gallons, and I'm glad I was never under one as it dropped. But as they dropped onto the cushion of horsehair Joe quickly moved in and rolled them off and up a gentle slope onto the stillage which ran the full length of the Cellar. It's only looking back that I realise how skilled he was in this operation as when the barrels came to rest in the shallow indentation on the stillage the keystone was always at the bottom.

Deliveries over, and all barrels on the stillage, Joe would wander down the length of the cellar tapping the barrels that were connected to a maze of plumbing, presumably judging by the sound how close to empty they were. On a couple of occasions he would decide to tap a new barrel in preparation for connecting it up to that curious maze. The taps were all Brass and there seemed to be hundreds of them either in use, useable or consigned to the pile of tarnished and battered taps on one of the stone shelves. Obviously, having been tapped Joe needed to sample the beer to ensure that it was ready, a pint would be poured and discarded, something I always thought odd, before a fresh glass was filled and held up to the light. Much muttering, sniffing and swirling of the glass followed before he took a sip quickly followed by a good drink if he was satisfied. Occasionally there was the shake of the head and a piece of chalk was produced from his waistcoat and some code written on the barrel end.

And so, in the cool confines of that cellar I had my first taste of beer, I can't say I remember it or whether I liked it, but for a couple of years those trips down the Cellar were a regular occurrence. The beer? Well it was a Wilson's house, and Wilson's Brewery happened to be the first that I visited several years later.