The Great British Beer Festival 2017

Lots of people are down on beer festivals at the moment. Or at least the CAMRA ones. And certainly their role does seem to be changing from showcasing cask beer to raising funds for our Mother Church.

When I were a lad, back in the days when most of the pubs near me were either Allied Breweries or Courage, beer festivals were a rare chance to see interesting and unusual beers like Hop Back Summer Lightning or Sarah Hughes Original Dark Ruby Mild. After the Beer Orders though it became increasingly possible to to sample a wide range of new beers just by visiting a few pubs in the town centre. So many years ago I stopped going to the Great British Beer Festival, the price of the ticket and the train fair seemed an awful lot to pay before a drop had even passed my lips.

But once I started getting free tickets for the trade day, and work paying for the transport, my view changed dramatically. Funny that. The GBBF is now a high spot of the year, better than a birthday or bookfair. There aren't often that many beers I'm keen to tick off, as despite my dedicated beer nerdery I haven't heard of most of them nowadays. A lot of beer geeks hang out at the foreign beer bars, and some seem to think this reflects badly on CAMRA, even though they've provided the beer and anyway it's hardly surprising that beer geeks flock around the rare and exotic beers rather than the permanently available domestic ones. But I'm even more lost with the foreign beers, so unless someone recommends stuff to me I seldom bother, and I didn't haven anything from abroad this year. I did have the Burning Sky/Harvey's key keg beer though, safe in the knowledge I wasn't putting my immortal soul at risk.

For me the GBBF for me is really about the networking, and I well ahead on points this year. I missed out on one person I'd hoped to catch up with, but saw so many others I can't complain. The IBD meeting is handy for the hobnobbing, and though it was a re-run of the haze meeting in October I still picket up some interesting titbits. The only published paper comparing the taste of fined and unfined beer showed negligible difference, but some of the audience said effects have been found (and not necessarily that unfined beers taste better) so it will be interesting to see if anything gets published.

Pic from October

I bought a book from Boak and Bailey, of which I've so far read very little but it's already a strong contender for Book of the Year.

Oh yes

And I was given a beer by a friend from the New Lion Brewery, which I'm delighted to say I managed to get home safely.

Cheers Mat!

As I was booked into a hotel in Olympia this year I stayed later than I normally do, which did help with all the networking. And yes, I did have a Full English the next morning, my need for fried pork products seemed particularly strong.