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.

A pub walk from Gomshall

Back in the Summer (you may remember fell it on a bank holiday this year) the lovely Lisa and I went on a pub walk around Gomshall. 

We were following another route in CAMRA's South East Pub Walks. We already had a bit of a thirst on by the time we'd got to the walk's start at Gomshall Station. The first pub we came to on the route was The Abinger Hatch. It wasn't an 'official' stop but we thought but we thought a quick off piste stop was in order. Our deviation did us no good though as it looked like a restaurant and we weren't taken with the beers so left without getting anything.

This meant we had to press on to Holmbury St Mary but it was worth the wait. The Kings Head was a proper pub, which was having its own beer festival and a barbecue. We sat in the garden enjoying a well earned pint.

The next leg involved navigating through a forest, which is something I've yet to master. The path we ended up on took us close enough to where we wanted to be though, so only a slight adjustment was needed to get us to our next stop, the Hurtwood Inn in Peaslake. This place was big, packed, and serving a couple of beers I'm boycotting. Fortunately the excellent Surrey Hills Shere Drop was on so we were able to have some righteous refreshment.

Then we were into the home straight and a late burst of speed allowed us to get in another pint between us of Shere Drop at the Compasses Inn.

We were so pushed for time I didn't even complain about the unsightly Northern head. Some quick guzzling and a dash to the station got us there in time for the train, which was just as well as the next one wasn't for two hours. Another great route from a CAMRA pub walk guide successfully completed.

The Keep, Guildford

On Saturday we checked out a Good Beer Guide pub not too far from home, The Keep in Guildford. It has a look a bit on the poncey wine bar side but was pleasant enough and the lovely Lisa and I managed to install ourselves on a leather sofa, a seating arrangement I throughly approve of.  

But enough about where our bottoms were parked, lets get on to what was poured down our necks. The beers were from an excellent local brewery, Surrey Hills. Well, they're currently local but looking at the website it seems they could be moving to Dorking. So it goes.  Two beers were on tap, Hammer Mild (3.8% ABV) and Shere Drop (4.2% ABV). It's not often I take much interest in mild, though there are occasional exceptions. My recently converted friend was there supping mild when we arrived so I thought I'd join in. It was, as you might expect, dark and sweet with not too much hops but really rather pleasant. When I moved on to Shere Drop I was reminded why I don't normally drink mild though. A great fresh hop flavour hit me with the first sip and that was my choice of beer sorted for the rest of the evening. 

The monkey was more fickle though switched to gin and tonic after trying each of the beers.

We has a good evening, in a nice pub and the beer was good so we'll definitely be back.

Ensure machines are well lubricated

I'll have a pint of pride please

On Saturday night I went to a fancy dress party. A polypin of Surrey Hills Gilt Complex, a good hoppy golden ale, provided most of the evening's refreshment. Some of us nipped out to the ship early in the evening, which raised a few eyebrows. I don't think they get many robots in the pubs in Ripley.

Beers in Ripley

Beer in Ripley

On Saturday myself and the lovely Lisa ended up drinking in Ripley as one of our friends had arranged a get together there. Ripley is just off the A3 and back in the day was on the main road from London to Portsmouth.

Because of this old transport connection, and the large number of local alkies, Ripley has maintained an impressively large number of pubs for its size. We started in a lovely looking old pub, the Ship, with a pint of London Pride. Sadly it tasted a bit watery so we weren't overly impressed. The other beers on offer weren't very inspiring either, being Greene King Abbot, Hogsback TEA and the recently revived Courage Best. Quite why the rights to this boring beer have been bought by Wells and Young's is a mystery to me. When I first started going to pubs Courage and Allied pretty much had the local area sewn up so Courage Best was a very common beer. Universally known as Courage Worst it was an insipid weak brown beer lacking in taste. Wells and Young's have managed to capture this lack of character perfectly making a boring beer with a slight sweetness. 

When one of our friends who lives locally said that they had Surrey Hills Shere Drop on in the Half Moon we didn't take much prompting to move on. The Half Moon isn't as nice a looking pub, but there were lots of seats and the beer was far superior. Shere Drop is a pale beer with plenty of citrusy hops so despite the price (£3.20 a pint!) we managed to sink quite a few. With prices this high I can see why pub trade is falling, but sometimes it's worth it.