So the dust settles on the Independent Manchester Beer Convention 2015 – there are probably some volunteers and organisers still in Victoria Baths clearing up the last bits and to all involved I raise a glass to them for their efforts.

While you are all doing that how is your post-Indy Man check-list coming along?

Indy Man always inspires me to write multi-part blogs, basically because there is so much happening and so many things can be raised because of it that one post would never do it justice.  This year I’m unsure whether that is best approach, I’m going to wait for other blogs to see if more pertinent things spring to mind.

Instead, as rather fortuitously this is my 100th blog post I thought I’d just muse about happy things and beery rays of light.

This week marks the year anniversary that I decided to introduce myself to some beer bloggers I’d only ever talked to via twitter.

Those souls who could not escape my drunk swivel-eyed rantings were Connor Murphy of Beer Battered, Rowan Molyneux of, er, Rowan Molyneux’s Beer Blog and Steve, 1/2 of Beer O’Clock Show – poor Connor even had to endure my babbling about rugby league.

This year the unfortunate one who got to meet me (in between his impromptu helping out at the Magic Rock bar) was Mark of Beer Compurgation (yep, ask him how you pronounce that last work and what it means).

There are of course many, many other people who I’ve met through Indy Man and other beer festivals too but there is something special about IMBC.

For me, taking place over multiple rooms is not in the least bit novel to this festival, but what is novel is that each place has its own personality, its own vibe.  I suppose it helps given the location it is in, but the punters add as much to the feeling and the building alone.

Not only that but you can be in one room surrounded by the hustle and bustle yet still be with your own thoughts.

Talking to random strangers, random brewers as well as familiar faces you went with or met there to me gives it a kind of pub feel.  A place I can relax and let even the slight irking from someone’s crass comments just washed over me.

But I suppose the biggest sense is that this is Manchester.  Sure the atmosphere is made up of people and brewers from far and wide but you get the sense, sharpened by the comments on twitter, that no other beer festival in the UK makes so many things just click all at once and all so very well and it is with a sense of pride that it is Manchester that does it best

Too gushing?  I did warn you.  If you want hate and vitriol I’m sure I can muster some up by the end of the year, in the mean time, thanks for reading.