Still the benefit of it all is that you tend to meet more people that you know on day one. The list is long, but I'll m
ention a few. Tom Fryer from the Oxford Bottled Beer Database was there. I may have persuaded him to start a beer blog. Wait and see on that one. The ebullient Beer Nut was there and there and there. I do hope he caught that plane back. I thought he was leaving it tight, but he seemed confident. I had more than one chat from Dave of the Woolpack Inn. He is a thoroughly nice guy trying to do good things in Cumbria. I even met Jeff Pickthall briefly and Mark of Pencil and Spoon even more briefly. Zak Avery was there and in good form and Bailey of Boak and Bailey was getting stuck into the 8% stuff like a good 'un. Impy Malting was there too, knitting and supping. And why not? I musn't forget erstwhile bloggers Maieb and YCC Dubbel. There was brewers to talk to and other trade people. I even served some beer.Yes beer - I haven't mentioned that yet. Beck Brau Pils was soothingly bitter, Dark Star American PA did was it said on the tin. I had some excellent mouth puckeringly dry and sour draught lambics and tastes of various Yankee casks, some of which were good. I will have a proper look at those today, though there is a tendency towards crystal malt loaded hop bombs which don't always work. I had one or two tastes of Italian beers too. Those I had were, to be kind, not very good, but I'll have another go and this time try and remember what they were.
The hall looked good. Food seemed varied and interesting. There's loads of beers still to try. So I'm girding my loins for another day. Amazingly I'm looking forward to it again.
Champion Beer of Britain was Rudgate Mild. Hmm. It isn't even the best mild in Yorkshire, but it's all about form on the day.
Photo is of me and my fellow ROB colleague and Deputy Chairman, Mike (Perry Mason) Robinson
8 comments:
Good to see you, Peter, as always. I would have spent longer at BSF, but I was with 'normal' friends so I was keeping my beer geek tendencies in check.
As for starting a beer blog, who knows? I'd like to in principle, but I fear it would suffer through being updated very infrequently. Also, I'm not sure if I'm opinionated enough ;-)
Yesterday was a great day. Sorry we didn't get to chat - I meant to look for you later on but by then I was just happy to find my way out of Earls Court safely!
Will you be there all week? I'm up again on Saturday to drink my way through the UK stuff.
Was Avery equipped with his over-sized wine glass?
I see our local brewery Southport won Gold in the Best Bitter category with Golden Sands. That's the third award this year that it has won that I'm aware of.
Looked out for you Tandleman, but by the time I got across to BSF things were looking a little hectic. Enjoyed a couple of really excellent Czech beers from Bernard Brewery; one light and one dark. Disappointed that I didn't get to try the Alaskan Smoked Porter. Gave the Bavarain beers a miss as I'll be sampling then later in the month, although sadly not the Franconian St Anna Fest biers.
Enjoy the rest of the festival, I was impressed with what I saw on Day One.
The Neder was the one dumper of the beers from the small breweries represented at this year's Annafest, FWIW. 'twas cloying and a bit funky. Blech.
The Greif was good, surprisingly, though not at all "golden" as described at the CAMRA webbie. In previous years, it'd been laden with DMS and/or phenols; I've dumped a couple of 6 € litres out on the ground.
You really must get to the Annafest some day. It's not un-plannable!
You tried some of my Birrificio Italiano Tipopils, which you didn't enjoy very much at all.
Biggest disappointment for me was the casked Torpedo IPA - somehow stripped of all the bright aromatic character.
And Keehn, I had to forgo the oversized wine glass, but loved drinking out of a tiny stemmed 1/3 pint goblet.
Oh Avery, you tickle me sometimes!
I was hoping you'd do a video on location.
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