CPD and networking at the GBBF 2019

This year's Great British Beer Festival seems to have been universally praised as a vintage year by my fellow beer nerds. I've been a bit under the weather myself, so though I can't deny I had a great time I should probably have been taking it easy rather than having another big day out. Still, I was there for the networking and CPD, not enjoying myself, and these things have to be done.

This years IBD lecture had been billed as a debate on whether cask beer should be served colder, though that's not quite what we got.

First up was someone from Brewfit touting their under bar cooler.

The cask connection was that it could be used to cool cask as well as keg beers. Most people would prefer their cask beer cooler, and most is served too warm.

It was a neat bit of kit, 18 m of cooling coil holding only 40 ml of product apparently.

They're made of laser welded 316 stainless steel and a single unit goes for £140.

I couldn't help but think though that with cask beer the cellar is too warm the beer will be lacking condition and cooling it down on the way to the bar won't help.

The second speaker was from Cask Marque, the cask beer quality accreditation service.

He talked of how they score beer for temperature:

And how a lot of cask beer is served too warm:

Most people would actually happy with the temperature if it was actually in spec. though (11-13°C)!

Cask Marque are also expanding their areas of operation under the name of Beer Marque, to include all beers and quality from cellar to glass.

It all sounds good stuff, but I've yet to find a beer geek have anything good to say about Cask Marque so if their efforts are having any effect they're not appreciated.

It was back to the networking after that, and it was another well deserved winner for the Champion Beer of Britain with Surrey Hill's Shere Drop winning.

Here's Ross with some other guy

I didn't have a pint as it's permanently on at my local. It is CAMRA Surrey Pub of the Year after all.

I did when I was there on Friday though, which must make it the easiest CBoB to track down for a long while.