The Great British Beer Festival
Coming up at the beginning of August is the Great British Beer Festival (GBBF).
Run by the Campaign for Real Ale, it’s volunteer staffed – I’ll be doing a stint on the bar this year – and is the nation’s premier festival for real ale and fine foreign beers.
There will be at least 450 beers available throughout the festival. And the Champion Beer of Britain will also be chosen out of what’s become an increasingly strong field of contenders. While national brewers do sometimes win – Greene King IPA got the silver award a few years back – microbrewers have a more than equal chance, with popular recent winners including Crouch Vale Brewer’s Gold, a citrusy golden ale from Essex, and Harviestoun’s Bitter and Twisted from Clackmannanshire.
CAMRA has now started giving out third of a pint glasses, so you can try even more beers! While, annoyingly, they’ve promoted them as ‘for the ladies’, I don’t see why the laddies shouldn’t use them too – if you want to try 10 beers, that’s just 3 1/3 pints instead of 5 pints, unless my maths is worse than I think it is. You still won’t be safe to drive but while a third of a pint gives you enough to taste the beer properly (a bare mouthful doesn’t), the lower volume might be the difference between a glorious next morning and a bad headache.
And yes, most people attending GBBF actually drink rather more than that! You’ll spot ‘beer tickers’, too, always on the move and restlessly searching for a rare beer they haven’t tasted.
Over 66,000 people attended in 2006 – I don’t have last year’s number – so this really is the big one – the next biggest, Cambridge, is half the size.
Where: Earl’s Court
When: 5-9 August 2008: Tue 1700 to 2230; Wed, Thu, Fri 1200 to 2230; Sat 1100 to 1900
Photo credit – Matthew Black on Flickr
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