So Many Beers, So little time : Review of Great British Beer Festival 2013

Armed with beard, beer belly and drinking hat it was off to Olympia for the Great British Beer Festival 2013.  The evenings are usually rammed and the beers do tend to run out at an alarming rate so I always try and make a day of it when it’s more relaxed and the volunteers behind the stand have a chance to talk to you about the beers they have sampled.

Great summer beer

I had quite a few beers in mind already from various recommendations on Twitter and the Champion beer awards so it was good to see that the third of a pint offering is pretty much standard at all these festivals now.  I was also pleased to see that the festival is all on one floor now, with the organisers having  abandoned the upstairs part of the hall in favour of the second hall next door.  It meant more room to move around and no bottle necks on the stairway.

My first beer was Buntingford Brewery’s Twitchell which picked up the Silver in this year’s Champion Beer of Britain in judging the day before.  I’m glad I did as it had sold out within the hour.  It’s a nice unassuming delicate floral session beer with gentle undertones of hops playing on the back of the tongue.  One might expect the judges to overlook such an understated beer but it’s to their credit that they took notice and the award is richly justified.

Keeping it local

Next on to a couple of London beers at the Old Empire Bar.  I know they are supposed to be local but I haven’t come across them in cask form so this was a good opportunity to catch up with them and just for the day avoid the keg/craft beers that currently seem to be all the rage.  Moncado’s Notting Hill Summer was a light unfined blond and cloudy beer with slight acidic notes ideal for hot summer afternoons.  At 3.2% it was a good follow up to the Twitchell before moving on to the heavier ales.  East London Brewing’s Foundations Bitter was also served hazy.  I’d describe it as a classic bitter with extre emphasis on the bitterness.  This crisp beer and is definitely worth a follow up.

It was good to see a number of old favourites still popping up at the festival including Adnam’s Ghost Ship, Hook Norton’s Old Hooky and Hopback’s Summer Lightning but today was a day for sampling beers I hadn’t tried before.

 

From here on I was joined by a few friends so the choice of beers started to come down to whatever caught our eye.  I passed on the Lymestone Stone Cutter which was described as a sulphuric aroma leading to a caramel sweet start and pleasing hop and fruit balance and went for the Moor Revival which had won a Silver in the bitter category.  My drinking buddy was braver and confirmed the description with the aroma caught in the foam head thoroughly pleasing once it hit the mouth.

 

The Revival, like the Moncado and Foundation Bitter was hazy but went down extremely well – one to look out for in the future.  The bronze in this category was awarded to Glaslyn Ale from the Purple Moose Brewery in Wales so it only seemed fair to complete the medal table and we weren’t disappointed.  This brewery also does a lot to support the Ffestiniog Railway and had a great display of a working steam engine and beer cart in the main hall.

As it was getting close to the end of the day and I had got round to most of the beers I’d wanted to try it was time to stick the toe into the water and try a few different things.  This part of the session is always a hit or miss but that’s what beer festivals are all about.

The An Gof strong Cornish Ale from Lizard Ales caught my eye as it must be the only beer brewed in a former nuclear bunker and the beer itself lives up to its abode with a robust malty and smokey taste dominating.  The Blond Volupta from Oldeshaw beers had to be tried just for the name and at 5% was one of the stronger blond ales that I tried on the day.  It was rather complex and difficult to decipher what was going on and I probably would have enjoyed it more earlier on in the day. 

Next to the bottle stand where my drinking buddy and I each chose something to tickle the taste buds.  We decided to stick with the pale ales and my bottle of St Lupulin Extra Pale Ale (6.5%) and his Shipyard Monkey Fist IPA at 6.9% went down a treat.  The bottles were all cooled and made a refreshing change from the cask beer but the peachiness of the ale still punched through.

Mixing things up we then threw in a few dry ciders including a straw pressed one from Venton Cider of Devon.  I think we misjudged our palette and should have gone for slightly sweeter variations but it was good to see the strong demand at this bar for the real thing rather than the mass market muck thats being peddled these days.

Grapefruit surprise

The surprising success of the day was St Peters Brewery’s Grapefruit beer.  I thought I knew their selection of beer pretty well but had never seen this one before.  It was not overpowering or acidic but an amazing essence of grapefruit permeated the taste and aroma with amazing subtlety even after all the other beers I’d tried.  My friend would disagree with this choice and went with an excellent Kissingate Black Cherry mild brewed with real black cherries in Muscovado.

One I missed out on

The American Cask selection with names such as Tricerahops at 8.8% and Molotov Hoptail at 8.6% were inventive and strong but did not seem to put off the punters and the casks were emptying fast.  My last beer of the day was from this stand and I went with a St George Brewing English Style IPA which at 5.5% was one of the weakest but a good example without being outrageous.

Regrets of the day – I missed out on the Twickenham Daisy Cutter and Brains' Aporkalypse oatmeal bacon stout and I should have tried a few of the excellent stouts on offer including Tillingbourne’s Black Troll at a light 3.7% (described as initial roast notes giving way to citrus hops!) and the strong Wessex Russian Stoat at 9% described as dark strong and obvious! Oh well, there's always next year!!