GBBF so far...

Have you been yet? If so, what’s been good?

My highlights from Tuesday’s session were Thornbridge Kipling (I don’t think there are many better cask beers brewed in Britain...), Brewsters Hophead, Arbor's Yakima Valley, an unspellable (lots of funny words and accents) Czech beer which contained coriander which was really good, Matuska Golden Rocket IPA and a lambic aged in Laphroig casks which was insane and brilliant (but only if you love sour beer and Islay whisky). The worst beer was Ballast Point’s Habanero Sculpin IPA. The normal Sculpin IPA is a fantastic beer but this was like drinking a combination of fire and hot sauce and in an already over-heating Earls Court it wasn’t a fun taste.

I’m going back again today and hoping to see more US and Czech beers on the bar (there are some really good Czech beers there) to be mixed with random choices of British beers to try and find some new breweries I’ve not tried before.

Cheers for GBBF 2011!

It’s here! I couldn’t sleep last night because I was so excited and then when I did sleep I had weird dreams about beer. The Great British Beer Festival is the best beery British week of the year.

Last year I wrote a post about The Cheer. I’m re-posting it again because I like it a lot.

A rainbow of people, colours and sounds, all holding glasses filled with golds, blacks and browns. A chatter purrs happily, an ebb and flow of conversation, laughing, rising and falling as you pass through the groups. “Have you tried this one?!” Someone excitedly bursts out thrusting a half of something under his mate’s nose. “What do you want next?” Around a corner drinkers are three deep at the bar, stretched all along, looking up and down, all around, a constant passing back and forth of glasses, money and beer; an empty here, a pint of stout there, a half of pale ale, a fiver, another empty, another half, a couple of quid change. Another corner and the smell of food strikes. Another corner and it opens into a line of bars and a huge seating area, so big you can barely see the other end, a rock star stage in between. People everywhere drink their beers, they talk about their day, their week, the weekends ahead; they gossip, talk about the news, cinema, sport; they talk about what they drank earlier, what they’ve got now, what they’ll order next; they say this is good, this isn’t, this is great, this is incredible, this is insane, this is… All around are the interested eyes of friends in conversation; the glazed-eyes of seven hours of being there; the eager eyes of the newly arrived; the crosshair focus of the poacher eyes of the ticker. And then it starts. It begins later in the day, five hours in, maybe six. The grip loosens, the excitement fails the hand. We don’t hear the shattering tink of glass on hard floor, what we hear is the cheer. The ‘whay’ which grows and spreads throughout, getting louder, building like a wave as everyone joins in, passing it on, the growing smiles and whoops and then the laughter and then back to where we left off, talking about this or that. Then later, nearer the end, it happens more, a constant flow of crash and cheer breaks conversations for a moment to join in - a second to drop everything and shout with the crowd.

That cheer is the uplifting soundtrack to the beer festival. It’s more than laughing at the loose fingers of someone unknown and unseen, it’s about having a chance and a reason to stand up and just cheer and let it all out, to call out because you are having a great time, to express the joy and belonging and spirit of carefree drinking fun that we are all feeling, and to do it in the simplest, most primal of ways. It’s a shared, united ‘cheers’ to our fellow drinkers, a way of chinking your glass with a thousand other merry men. The cheer is not for the broken glass, it’s for the full ones about to be emptied and then refilled - it’s for us. I’ll drop my glass to that.

Last year I also wrote a survival kit for GBBF and this year’s is almost exactly the same (this is a fairly lazy blog post, as you’ve probably noticed already...).

1 x beer list (so I make sure I try everything I want to)

1 x notebook (to remind me what I drank and how it tasted)

4 x freshly-sharpened pencils (to write in the aforementioned notebook)

1 x pencil sharpener (in case I write a lot, which never happens because I’m too busy drinking)

1 x Blackberry (to tell twitter what I’m up to and to take pictures)

1 x bottle of water (stay hydrated!)

1 x lots of bubble wrap (safety first for bottle purchases)

1 x pack of milk thistle (look after your liver)

1 x pack of paracetamol (the morning after)

Lots x bananas (potassium, magnesium, vitamin B6, energy and hangover relief)

1 x isotonic sports drink (to replace sugars and salts; to give energy; to help the hangover)

1 x pack of bacon (essential)

I’m all prepared so bring it on! I’ll be there all day Tuesday and then Thursday from late-afternoon. If you are there then say hi.

Here’s to GBBF and may it be an awesome week!

GBBF Week: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Good: The beer (obviously); the pork scratchings (obviously); seeing friends, old and new; third measures; the volunteers who deserve a standing ovation each evening; the location (big, brilliant); the speed to enter is incredibly good if you have a ticket; despite the hoards of people, the gallons of beer and mountains of food, it somehow never seems dirty or messy in there; the waves of Cheers which growl around the venue as the days progress.

The Bad: I think water should be freely available and encouraged, perhaps on a free water bar; on Saturday there was no cask US beer left and much of the other beer was sold out by 5pm (good for the festival, not so good for the drinker who can only attend on Saturday); and does anyone really listen to the music? (these are all minor - there's little to complain about, in my opinion)

The Ugly: The gents’ toilets towards the end of the day (a long time queuing followed by standing swaying-shoulder to swaying-shoulder with two other guys, aiming with considerable difficulty into the white hole surrounded by a frog chorus of farts and barely-stifled giggles).

The Best Beers: Portsmouth Brewery Bottle Rocket IPA was my favourite overall beer, a fruity, tangerine-juiced IPA, so deliciously good that it’s got my tongue doing excited somersaults just remembering it; the Portsmouth Oatmeal Stout was also exceptional and the smoothest mouthful of beer of the week; Fyne Ale’s Jarl was the best UK beer I had, its bright flavour blinds its bland 4% peers, firing out fruity hops and pithy bitterness; a passing gulp of Birrificio Italiano Tipopils was excellent and I’m glad I picked up a bottle to bring home; Fuller’s Chiswick and ESB were both in remarkably good condition and reaffirmed to me just how good their beers can be, while the Brewer’s Reserve No.2 showed the other side of Fuller’s, a side worthy of considerable attention (Kelly Ryan writes this great piece about it); Durham’s Hopping Mad, Arbor Beech Blonde, Marble Manchester Bitter, Thornbridge Kipling and Moor’s Revival all really hit the hop spot, vibrant and full-flavoured UK ales; Opa Opa King Oak Milk Stout was a great example of a style I don't drink often enough; a few good lagers were served to me by Tandleman, all excellent and cool with crisp flavours and just what I wanted as a little refresh from the US hops, even if I can’t remember what they were (there was a Zoigl and an unfiltered Kolsch among them...); De Molen’s Tsarina Esra Reserva was ridiculously delicious and dangerously good.

Photo by Jonas Smith

The Other Memorable Beers: Saltaire Triple Chocoholic really is a cocoa lover’s dream; four bottles for 50p each, two unlabelled, one from 1980 and one from 1981, all perfectly drinkable, all showing the results of careful aging, all interesting to try; Revelation Cat’s Single Hop Lambic was unforgettable in a bad way, clashing sour with big, citrus hops; Rogue’s Chipotle Ale had three of us all exclaim ‘smoked paprika’, which, while it may be my favourite spice in the kitchen, is not something I want in my beer (this was one of three bottles which Mark writes about, which had us talking for an hour about beer and food pairings for three out-there beers).

GBBF week is done. It’s a crazy, intense and brilliant week. It’s a time for meeting up with friends and drinking good beers, just because we can. If you went, what was good, what was bad, what was ugly?! The best beer you had was...?

I got the images from the CAMRA website.

The Cheer

A rainbow of people, colours and sounds, all holding glasses filled with golds, blacks and browns. A chatter purrs happily, an ebb and flow of conversation, laughing, rising and falling as you pass through the groups. “Have you tried this one?!” Someone excitedly bursts out thrusting a half of something under his mate’s nose. “What do you want next?” Around a corner drinkers are three deep at the bar, stretched all along, looking up and down, all around, a constant passing back and forth of glasses, money and beer; an empty here, a pint of stout there, a half of pale ale, a fiver, another empty, another half, a couple of quid change. Another corner and the smell of food strikes. Another corner and it opens into a line of bars and a huge seating area, so big you can barely see the other end, a rock star stage in between. People everywhere drink their beers, they talk about their day, their week, the weekends ahead; they gossip, talk about the news, cinema, sport; they talk about what they drank earlier, what they’ve got now, what they’ll order next; they say this is good, this isn’t, this is great, this is incredible, this is insane, this is… All around are the interested eyes of friends in conversation; the glazed-eyes of seven hours of being there; the eager eyes of the newly arrived; the crosshair focus of the poacher eyes of the ticker. And then it starts. It begins later in the day, five hours in, maybe six. The grip loosens, the excitement fails the hand. We don’t hear the shattering tink of glass on hard floor, what we hear is the cheer. The ‘whay’ which grows and spreads throughout, getting louder, building like a wave as everyone joins in, passing it on, the growing smiles and whoops and then the laughter and then back to where we left off, talking about this or that. Then later, nearer the end, it happens more, a constant flow of crash and cheer breaks conversations for a moment to join in - a second to drop everything and shout with the crowd.

That cheer is the uplifting soundtrack to the beer festival. It’s more than laughing at the loose fingers of someone unknown and unseen, it’s about having a chance and a reason to stand up and just cheer and let it all out, to call out because you are having a great time, to express the joy and belonging and spirit of carefree drinking fun that we are all feeling, and to do it in the simplest, most primal of ways. It’s a shared, united ‘cheers’ to our fellow drinkers, a way of chinking your glass with a thousand other merry men. The cheer is not for the broken glass, it’s for the full ones about to be emptied and then refilled - it’s for us. I’ll drop my glass to that.

GBBF Survival Kit

My GBBF Survival Kit contains:

1 x beer list (tick, tick, tick)

1 x notepad (to remind me what I drank and how it tasted)

4 x freshly-sharpened pencils (my tools)

1 x pencil sharpener (in case I blunt the above-mention pencils)

1 x blackberry (to tell twitter what I’m up to; to take pictures; to send sexts on the train home)

2 x big bottles of water (stay hydrated!)

1 x big roll of bubble wrap (safety first for bottle purchases)

1 x pack of milk thistle (love your liver)

1 x pack of paracetamol (the morning after)

3 x bananas (potassium, magnesium, vitamin B6, energy)

2 x packs of salt and vinegar Squares (my guaranteed hangover prevention and relief)

1 x isotonic sports drink (to replace sugars and salts; to give energy)

1 x supermarket-brand Red Bull (stimulation for body and mind)

1 x pack of bacon (essential)

I’m ready. Have I forgotten anything?!

(Notes: The sports drink has been started because I had a lingering bitch of a hangover yesterday and the bacon is Jamie Oliver’s, it looks lovely. Not pictured is the huge wad of cash I’ll be needing to see me through Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday at the festival. For the action plan see here.)

GBBF Take 2

Yeah I’m still riding this wave but this’ll just be a post focusing on the beer I drank on Saturday at the GBBF with my mates Lee, Matt, Sean and Dave. The intention was to spend Tuesday on the US stuff and Saturday on the UK stuff. Here’s what I managed.

I arrived just before midday and sped to see what was left of the BSF. I saw nothing but silver shelfing and an empty fridge. But as I looked further along there was a huddle of people and I saw one, single cask being dispensed. To my delight it was Stone’s Pale Ale, a beer I’ve never had before. Result! It was pretty good, it tasted a little beyond its best but all the essential pieces were in place and it made for a decent starter beer. I also clocked the fridge still-full of US bottles and eyed that up for later…
On a quick warm-up lap I saw Moor’s Revival (a finalist in the Champion Beer of Britain 2009) and knowing how I loved and waxed lyrical about JJJ I had to try it. It was lovely; really easy drinking and quenching with dry, fruity-floral hops. This is just the sort of hoppy, full-flavoured, sub-4% beer that I’m loving right now (these are the future, I tell you!). Next, because I read a tweet from Steve saying it was on, came Fuller’s 2009 Vintage. I real scoop. It’s caramel coloured, bready, malty and clean and then it goes into fresh, grassy and green hops. It was great to try it from the cask but for me I love these with a couple of years under them when the hops fade down and the dried fruit and brandy flavours ease through. The 2004 I tried here is still one of the best beers I’ve ever had.

Fearing the fridge would clear-out I grabbed some bottles: Ballast Point’s Big Eye IPA (which I also bought on Tuesday and brought home – see the video below!) and Deschutes Black Butte Porter (I also wanted some lagers but the queue for this was almost unending!). The Big Eye IPA is 100% Centennial which was exactly why I had to have it. At GBBF it tasted a little sticky, a little tangy with lots of tropical fruit and a great big bitter finish. I’ve opened the bottle at home and it was stunning: a big bowl of oranges, bitter, juicy, fruity and just all-out-awesome. The Black Butte Porter was classic new-skool porter: full-bodied, chocolatey, smooth, sweet, nutty and very good indeed.
Dinner followed and I had to have another chicken balti pie because it was amazing on Tuesday. It was amazing again on Saturday. I went to the Cains stand for this beer and went for the Dark Mild (not as an intended FAB POW! just to have a beer to wash it down) which was a solid mild. It didn’t match the pie but it was super with some pork scratchings (oh the beautiful pork scratchings!). I also had some Cains Fine Raisin Beer which I loved last year and really enjoyed again this year, in a guilty-pleasure kind of way.

Then Woodland’s Midnight Stout an oily, smoky, full-flavoured stout and a total surprise of a brew. And it was similar in many ways to Cairngorm’s Black Gold which is super-smoky, meaty, roasty and chocolatey. Excellent UK stouts like this are great to find. Following this was DarkStar’s Espresso Stout which was all coffee-bitter and dark and mouth coating; another cracking dark beer from the UK. Smiles all round.

HSB was on and we had to have that one. Matt and I used to go to a pub near university and drink four pints of this while doing the quiz each Thursday. It was £2.50 a pint and just fantastic. The beer is still great and a taste of a memory (see Matt again in this post as well as Lee), although I’m sure it used to be 5.2% before Fuller’s took over the brewing of it?

I love Dorothy Goodbody’s Wholesome Stout so went for the Wye Valley Bitter which was fruity with a dry hoppy finish but ultimately a bit boring. To compensate for this I had a Montegioco Mummia, one of the beers I most enjoyed on Tuesday. I could drink buckets of this stuff, it’s that good (although none of my mates liked it?!).
More bottles followed… Birrificio Lambrate Ligero which was floral and fruity, quenching and biscuity then into a slightly sour fruit note and a dry, bitter finish. It took us a few sips to get out heads around this one but it was great. Then came a Big Sky Scape Goat Pale Ale which we all decided we would buy a lot of if it was available in the UK: citrus, pineapple, pine and then a cakey sweetness; loads of flavour and all very easy drinking - a lawnmower beer with bite. There was also a bottle of De Molen Vuur and Vlam which my notes tell me is like Orval without the brett. It’s spicy, dry and tangy with peppery hops. Excellent but it took a while to wrap my mouth around it. And there was some Hogs Back A over T too which was smooth, boozy and tasted like brandy and strawberries.

There we go. Another busy drinking day. I had the intention of drinking all UK but got distracted by the US and Italian bottles. I was very impressed with the UK stuff that I did drink but then I pretty much only shot for the names I knew. There were disappointments and there was great surprises and overall I was very impressed by the quality of the UK beers on show throughout the festival.

So that’s GBBF 2009 done. What a festival. It was so much better than I anticipated.

Oh and here’s the video of me drinking Ballast Point Big Eye IPA. It’s one seriously good beer.

GBBF Take 1

It started early, being woken by the blare of Balham High Street and the head-thumping effects of the British Guild of Beer Writers 21st Anniversary bash the night before. From there came a fry-up and a detoured tube journey to Earls Court where I met Brad outside. Like most I went with the vague and vain plan of starting on a few moderately alcholed brews – something in the 4s, perhaps – but that was immediately forgotten as I ordered a cask Stone IPA to start the day. This was a wise and important choice. The first beer of the day is incredibly important: choose wrongly and the whole day can be ruined in a game of catch-up and no one wants that. The Stone IPA was C-hop-eautiful.

Next I had a Bridgeport IPA which I found uninteresting, but Pete Brown loved the stuff. Then I went for a Victory HopDevil, having been disappointed with the bottles. The cask was much better and I’m sure I got that tangy smack of Nelson Sauvins with even a hint of chocolate orange. Solid stuff but not spot on. Then I threw caution to the wind plumped for Allagash’s Interlude, a 10.5% beer with Brett and aged in wine barrels. Astonishing stuff. Impy Malting – who I was really excited to finally meet! - loved it. Lemony, brett, boozy and big, spicy, woody and just pretty damn cool, although I found it a challenge to get through, to be honest, but that may have been because it was barely the afternoon and I was eager for more, more, more hops!
Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA followed and I attempted some gonzo food and beer pairing with a chicken balti pie. The beer, for me, was lacking pizzazz and was better bottled. Then I had the Sierra Nevada Stout which I found uninspiring and was eclipsed by Rogue’s Chocolate Stout which is hard to describe without saying awesome. It was a glassful of pure cocoa, so full bodied, so much fun to drink. My olfactory gland was pointing to twelve.

Fearing a vicious backlash anytime around three, I dropped down to some weaker beers to attempt to plateau my buzz. I find dark beers with cherries almost irresistible and the Dunham Massey Cherry Chocolate Mild was really interesting and easy drinking. Vanilla chocolate covered cherry drops. I enjoyed this one at the Irish table with Ally, Boak, Laura, Thom and the ever-smiling Beer Nut; a whole bunch of people I’d been wanting to meet. That was a fun table!

Next I went Italian with Montegioco Mummia, a 4.8% sour with a wine character and a smooth, balanced, almost-savoury middle after the tart beginnings. One of the best beers I tried. Keeping on the same lines I went with The Tap’s Beerstand Berlinner Weisse a 3% cloudy, pale beer with a lemon grove nose and a crisp, biscuity flavour. A proper palate cleanser.

We were sitting with Jeff and Jo, a couple of regulars from The Bull (Garrett and Lynne, the landlord and lady were also there), and each beer run returned four third-pints so there was plenty to try. The best was White Shield Czars Imperial Stout which had one of the best noses of the day and a great, thick body of roast malt. Then came another star: Portsmouth’s Milk Coffee Stout which was smooth, sweet, roasty, chocolatey and then flows into a wonderful orangey finish that was just gorgeous. More beers should taste like this!

And next was the star of the day for me: Captain Lawrence’s Captain’s Reserve IPA, a 9%er overflowing with the green grenades and peaches and apricots and a marvelously fresh and bitter finish. If there hadn’t have been 450 other beers to drink I would’ve sat down with quite a few glasses of this. Then another star: a bottle of Dogfish Head’s 90 Minute IPA. I’ve had this before and was disappointed because it totally lacked bitterness but this was totally excellent and lived up to its hype. More US hops next (would you believe?!): Lagunitas IPA which was caramel, piney, pithy hops, pineapple, peach and tropical fruits - yum o’clock.
Then some more dark stuff. De Molen had two giant casks handsomely standing behind the bar. I had no idea what was in them but there was no way I was going to miss out on whatever it was! They were special beers. And while we’re on barrel-aged big ones I tried some Cambridge Brewing Company's YouEnjoyMyStout which was like liking the inside of a bourbon barrel that’s been painted with dark chocolate. If you like that kind of thing then it’s wicked. I like that kind of thing.

Finally I grabbed a Galway Hooker right at the end to raise my glass to the then-departed Irish folk. I think my enjoyment of this suffered thanks to a too-hot Cornish pasty scorching my tongue, a fatigued palate and a day on big hops. I did enjoy the beer though and can imagine sinking a few of them on a hot day.

So the beers were good but all of these beers would’ve meant nothing if it hadn’t been for the people I was drinking with. It’s been mentioned here, here, here and here but it’s massively important - it’s the beauty and the soul of these festivals. The joy is in sharing beers and hearing what is good and what can be missed and for all those offering their glass my way and saying those wonderful words: try this!

I either mention everyone or no-one and I’ve decided to go with everyone… here goes (I hope I remembered everyone!). Beer writers on Monday and Tuesday: Zak Avery, Pete Brown and his lovely wife Liz, Jeff Pickthall, Adrian Tierney-Jones, Phil Lowry and Colin from Beermerchants, Melissa Cole, Jeff Bell and Dave who I shared a few fantastic bottles of Harvey’s Imperial Stout with on Monday; also at the BGOWB do was Greg Koch, Steve Williams, Roger Protz (just a handshake and a hello), Jeff Evans and Podge (the Hairy Bikers were also there but I didn’t speak with them). Then at GBBF with Simon who didn’t seem reluctant in his scooping, Barm, Maeib and too-briefly there was Tandleman, along with the other bloggers already mentioned. And then some brewers - Kelly Ryan and Dave from Thornbridge, Justin from Moor Beer, Stu from Crown Brewery (I need to try some of your beers!), Tonie from Hopdaemon (Skrimshander IPA is a local favourite of mine) and Steve from Ramsgate Brewery and Saintsandsinners.

If it wasn’t for the people, for new friends and old ones, then the GBBF would be nothing but a vacuous shell full of casks of beer and solemn faces. Thankfully it was beaming smiles, belly laughs and talking shit in between swigs of some really great beers. If only all beer festivals could be like Trade Day at the GBBF.

Oh, and I bought some bottles home too.

FYI: Adding all those links took for-bloody-ever!! I need a beer after that. And this post is called Take 1 because I'm going back to GBBF for seconds/leftovers on Saturday!