THE Victoria Inn in Midland Place has been better known for music over the last few years, with its small back room packed to the rafters and reverberating to the sounds of many different bands, some of whom have gone on to greater things from those beginnings.

And while I remember the Vic as having a decent pint of Bass many years ago when it was an essential call-in on what used to be a very good pub crawl around the station area – even including the bar on Platform One for a while – beer has not been the big reason to visit the pub for a while.

However, that is set to change from tomorrow, when the first of a series of special beers commemorating Derby County's illustrious past goes on sale.

The Vic is one of those pubs which is on the route towards Pride Park Stadium for many, so it gets a good crowd on match-days and they drink a fair bit of beer. Tomorrow, they will be able to sample Cloughie's Pride, a reddish-brown bitter which is the first fruits of an arrangement with Derby's Derventio Brewery.

Profits from the first two barrels will be going to charity, since the pub has pledged to raise £2,012 in 2012.

Four more beers will be on the way by March, all brewed by Derventio and all named after years which are instantly recognisable to any Rams fan. They will be called 1884, 1946, 1972 and 1975, which are, respectively, the year of formation, the year of the club's only FA Cup win and the two in which the First Division Championship was won. That's a very good idea and not a bad introduction at all for the Vic's new bar manager, Amy Hancock.