Another year – another festival of great ale!
By: JimOldfield
August 30th, 2012
When Hand-Pumped offered two free tickets for this year’s Great British Beer Festival, in assocation with CAMRA, reader Adrian Pearce was lucky enough to come out of our hat first.
And London-based Adrian was kind enough to share his good fortune – by writing a first-person review of his day out… complete with pictures.
Here is his view:
Another year, another GBBF – and another chance to catch up on the state of the brewing business.
And this year of course, a return to an old home, Olympia.
I was delighted to hear that the festival had been booted out of Earls Court, in favour of a sporting event, since Olympia is a far nicer venue. For a start you can see the sky through the glazed roof of the Grand Hall. On a sunny day that makes a real difference. In Earls Court it could have been midwinter.
Curiously though, because of layout changes, the new look GBBF at Olympia seems somewhat underwhelming.
There is a lot of space where nothing is really going on.
On the plus side, the first floor of the West Hall (pictured below, left) is now in use as a bar area. That allows many to enjoy a quiet sit down with their drinks.
Elsewhere, the Bar Nouveau has gone, replaced by a Champion Beer of Britain contenders bar, while the Bieres Sans Frontieres foreign beer bars appear to have been heavily shrunk.
On that note, one volunteer on the American bar told me they understood there were fewer US beers because CAMRA organisers were getting fed up with their popularity. The GBBF, they had been told, was a festival of British not American beers.
Others I spoke to felt that it wasn’t just the Americans that had been shrunk, it was more a case of all bars being squeezed.
None of that though affects the beer. As ever, it was rare to find a bad beer at the GBBF. You may pick one that is not to your liking but the quality of what is on offer remains high.
The surprise for me though, was the Champion Beer of Britain. At 8.5 per cent ABV, it seems unikely that Coniston’s No. 9 Barley Wine is going to convert many drinkers to real ale.
Coniston’s David Smith has already said he is not expecting a surge in demand for his beer.
It may have been voted the best… but is it the best beer for CAMRA? A great example of a British tradition – but it is unlikely to be in a pub near you any time soon.
So what about next year? A festival survey on the tables asked whether we wanted Earls Court or Olympia.
CAMRA organisers had been delighted by the boost in numbers brought by the slightly easier transport access at Earls Court.
But unfortunately the venue is due for demolition in the meantime, as part of a major redevelopment project.
So it looks unlikely to be available again.
What IS important is that the GBBF remains in London.
Please, no return to the Metropole, Brighton!
– Adrian Pearce
