Great British Beer Festival

Great British Beer Festival
4th to 8th August 2009
Earls Court, London

On Wednesday 5th August I left Chester on the 8.55am train bound for Crewe with a quick change and onto the Manchester train bound for Euston. I was there bang on time at 11:05am and armed with a day pass (now £5.60) I was on the underground and bound for Earls Court Tube Station and then a short walk to the Conference Centre. I was there for 11.45am but with large queues waiting to enter at Noon I thought I would go for something to eat ahead of my beer tasting activities!! Again I went to the Dragon King which serves delicious Chinese food.

My Late Aunt Jessie used to live in Earls Cross Road and the number 165 springs to mind. It was a second floor flat so I am very familiar with the area having last visited it at Xmas 2008.

By the time I entered the beer festival, at the back of 1pm, it is very busy and having paid my £10 entrance fee (£8 to members) and a £3 deposit on my pint glass I am well ready for an afternoon of “sampling”. Where do you start? I decided to go in an anti-clockwise route all around the Hall. This is Britain’s biggest beer festival and brings together a wide range of real ales, ciders, parries and international beers. (See – www.gbbf.org.uk). Some 64,000 people did attend the event.

By the back of 2pm I had sampled a fair few and was merry as was the rest of the continually growing crowd. My favourite was Tom Paine at 5.5% and brewed by Harveys and was a premium dry hopped bitter named after the radical Tom Paine who lived in Lewes, East Sussex in the Late 18th Century. Other beers I remember tasting and enjoying were:
• Midsummer Witch
• Bishops Finger
• Stairway to Heaven
• Highgate – Dark Mild
• Hanged Monk
• Flight of Fancy
• Swift One

By 4pm after my second circuit of this massive hall I did decide to exit as a third circuit could prove fatal!!

If you have not visited this great event before put it in your dairy for next year would be my recommendation. (www.eco.co.uk)

10th August 2009