Confederacy of a Dunce - Great British Beer Festival

Monday, August 08, 2005

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Friday evening Mrs. Dunce and I took a little trip to lovely Kensington Olympia for this year's Great British Beer Festival (the largest beer festival in the UK). Friday night is perhaps the worst time to attend such a large festival as it was mobbed (and I mean mobbed) with after-work punters. The queue for entry stretched down the block -- I don't know exactly how far as we swanned in the CAMRA members' entrance¹. The festival is set up geographically (but not properly corresponding to British geography), with beers from different regions grouped together (exceptions: "big brewers" were set up right at the front; bottled real ale was available at a separate bar; foreign beers in another; cider and perry in their own section as well [well, all the perry was sold out by the time we got there, as the festival had been going on since Tuesday]. Oh yeah, there was also a separate Wetherspoon bar.). I was rather impressed by the large number of mild ales on offer. It's difficult to get a handle on the hundreds of beers on offer; the question is always where to start. Mrs. Dunce chose to start with the award winners, while I followed a simpler path (targeting beers with "hoppy" in the flavor descriptions, for the most part, or else because the pump clip had a picture of a cute kitty on it²). As I've left our tasting notes at home, I'll save the beer ratings for another entry.

As I mentioned before, Friday night is the worst time to attend as it was unpleasantly crowded, and there were some tendencies for obnoxious people to shove their way to the front of the beer queues (beer is served by a relatively small number of volunteers, not all of whom have an experienced bartender's eye for "who's next"). There were, however, many individuals of the female persuasion present, far more than previous festivals we have attended (the Dunces' first festival as a couple featured what seemed like fewer than ten (10) women and a whole mess of men). Presumably this is a good thing for real ale which is fighting against a bit of a stereotype (beards, sandals, beer bellies): a couple years ago it was all the news that Madonna was a fan of real ale, but additional endorsements from famous women have not exactly been pouring in.

We forgot about the CAMRA members' lounge which offers the opportunity for card-carrying CAMRA members to quaff in the relatively uncrowded company of other sandal-wearing beardies with bellies, which would have allowed us to be a little less distressed by the crowds. There was no shortage of merchandise for sale, but we limited ourselves to a book on pub architecture (and were pleased to note that the Salisbury, the site of our wedding reception, featured quite prominently). OK we also donated a few pounds to the tombola (supporting historic pubs) but won a couple of glasses, a 2003 Good Beer Guide and a couple of badges for our trouble. After a few different beers we decided to leave before the very end (a little after 10pm) and joined a crowded train full of post-festival revelers, heading for home.

¹Beer festivals do have a certain importance in the Dunce household. Our first proper date was the Pig's Ear beer festival, and our membership card for the Campaign for Real Ale was the first official document to bear Mrs. Dunce's married name.

²OK, I did pick one beer with a cute kitty on the pump clip, but I had already decided upon it on the basis of its description.

consume

Monday, August 08, 2005 11:17:23 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)