The Great British Beer Festival

Most who know me know how much I love beer. So as you can imagine I was extremely excited to be going to the Great British Beer Festival on Wednesday night. I called up a fellow beer lover and he was equally excited to be going. Since this was a boy's night out, as Heather has no interest in beer, I decided to make it a really special occasion by grabbing a McDonald's double cheeseburger on the way (the main reason for the McDonalds selection was that I was on a £20 budget for the evening and I did not want to eat into my beer selection).

So it was £7 to get in, £3 for a pint glass (which is returnable, but I always keep mine), and £1 for a program. The program was essential because it was the only way to find the beer that I wanted to try out of the over 700 different drinks that were on offer. It is also good because it helps me remember the beer that I tried (things can be a bit fuzzy the next day). After all of the initial costs, I was left with about £9, which turned out to be just about enough as each half pint cost around £1.50 (I did borrow a little bit from my friend for the last sample). I stuck to my plan of sampling strong ales, porters, and one sample of barley wine. My favorite from the evening was the first one a tried, 1872 Porter by E&S brewery. It was just a really good strong and tasty porter. My second favorite was the last one I tried which was a barley wine (off the top of my head, I don't remember the name of it, but I could consult the program if I wanted to know).

We weren't quite finished with our last samples when it was time for my friend to get going. Rather than take a quick last gulp and then toss the rest, he had the bright idea of just slipping the half empty glasses into our bags and then finishing the drinks on the tube ride home. It was one of those ideas that sounds really good after 3 pints of strong ale. Needless to say, I sloshed barley wine all over the inside of my bag which now smells of stale beer.

Unfortunately, I had missed the opportunity to use the toilet before we left the festival (as a side note, a beer festival is one of the few occasions when there is a line at the men's bathroom and not a line at the women's). As a result, I was more than a little "uncomfortable" by the time I got the last train station to go home. Thank God for the little pay toilet stalls in London Bridge train station. Luckily I had the 20p coin needed to get in, and a disaster was averted.

Overall an excellent night out. You just can't beat a good beer festival. I would like to add that I think I prefer a slightly smaller beer festival than this one. 700 beers is a bit overwhelming, the crowds were enormous, and we ended up sitting on the floor most of time. All of that is really of little consequence because all of the wonderful beer more than made up for it.

I wasn't exactly greeted with open arms when I got home. Heather, who had not been drinking ale all night, claimed I smelled of "tramps and wee" (an expression we picked up from a disgusted English woman, used to describe the smell when walking under a bridge by the river).

JE