A TOWN'S streets were almost awash with beer yesterday when a Thwaites beer lorry smashed into a railway bridge.

The top of the waggon hit the Atlas Road bridge, Darwen, at 1pm as the driver returned to the brewery in Blackburn after the morning drop off.

Barrels full of beer fell to the ground but not a single drop was spilled.

Mark Brynes, Thwaites distribution operations manager, said: "The driver was on his way back to Blackburn and he only had one drop off left. He didn't negotiate the height of the bridge properly and crashed into it."

The lorry was carrying 80 empty containers and 13 beer-filled barrels, each containing between 11 and 22 gallons.

The crash caused minor traffic disruptions to traffic on Railway Road and Kay Street.

One onlooker said: "It was an almighty crash and I thought my luck could have been in when I saw the beer barrels."

PC Mark Greenhalgh, who was at the scene at the time of the incident, said: "I helped the traffic to move along.

"There weren't any major delays because the lorry managed to pull off the main road."

A spokesman from Railtrack said: "There was no damage done to the bridge and the trains are running as normal."