Great British Beer Festival

Posted on 2009/08/07 21:39:38 (August 2009).

[Wednesday 5th August]
Went to the GBBF today.

I've been to Reading Beer festival a few times - several years on the trot in fact (2003, 2004, 2005) and also way back in 1997. I remember really enjoying these - it's small but very popular, and when the weather was nice (which it mostly wasn't!) it was lovely to sit out on the grass and enjoy a pint of interesting local ale. Also went to Woodcote Steam Rally once, which has a sort of mini-beer festival tacked on, and rather enjoyed that too.

So I'd kind of expected the GBBF would be something similar. I guess in a sense it was - the basic format was the same - lots of stands with lots of different beers to try - but somehow for me the banality of Earl's Court just rather killed it. It's like a multi storey car park. Plus there seemed to be just too many people, which meant a lot of it was just spent queuing.

Oh well. Did have some nice milds and a couple of nice ciders (well one nice cider and one I wasn't so keen on) I suppose, but there was just something about the venue that meant I couldn't really enjoy it to the full.

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