Farnham beer exhibition 2010

It was my favourite beer festival last night: Farnham beerex. As usual we went to the Saturday evening session, which means we don't have to dash down after work and cunningly allows me to get beer recommendations from my mate John who goes on the Friday. 

Despite this the lovely Lisa had an even more cunning plan for the first beer - get something in quick and then worry about tracking down particular beers. Fortunately for us the first beer that caught our eye was St Austell's Proper Job. We'd enjoyed this recently in the bottle and the weaker draught version sorted out the thirst that had built up on the journey. With a beer safely in my hand I had several minutes to find the next one. The RCH breweries East Street Cream was the next choice and and it was a good recommendation from John. Even better though was the next one on his list, Funky Monkey from the Milk Street brewery. There was a touch of caramel to the taste, but hops to balance it out and even though it was only 4% ABV was the beer of the festival for me. 

I settled down to some steady guzzling after that, Oakham Ale's Inferno, stands out in the beery haze of the evening, as does Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild. I'd gone years without seeing Sarah until the Wandsworth Common beer festival last month, and now I got to have some more only a few weeks later. 

Looking at the festival programme I was slightly disturbed to realise I'd been coming to this beer festival for 20 years, from when I was a fresh face youngster only able to bore a handful of friends about real ale to now being recognised as one of the 20 biggest beer bores in Britain!

Standing in the courtyard with my mates, getting steadily pissed on quality beers, with cunts with banjos a folk band playing in the background I was reminded why this is my favourite festival. Here's to another 20 years!