Great British Beer Festival

Overall we had a damn fine time. Food was interesting & plentiful– far better than at any of the myriad American beer fests we have attended. Beer was excellent & turned us solidly into fervent devotees to Real Ale– it no longer seems «warm & flat» to our American palates. It tastes Flavorful & Easy to drink. Atmosphere was definitely more reserved & stand-​offish than we were used to. So much beer, divided into nifty themed bars, we were very satisfied, having made such a long journey to attend. We took off one star for the following: 1) zero of the (promised on their website) water stations existed anywhere 2) Dump buckets… I mean yes, we are paying per pour (a system we rather liked) but you’re bound to get a bad beer now & then… Dump buckets go very well alongside Water Stations. 3) if anyone in charge is reading this please fix the signage situation. The facility has 6 or more ways «upstairs to more seating» but you blocked off 5 of them for «staff only» & posted pissy volunteers at them to tell us to find another way up. It was immensely frustrating to have only one way upstairs & for it to be in no way well marked.

I love this festival. It’s a good chance to meet another beer lovers and enjoy different kinds of beer. Don’t ever miss it !

I love beer and I love music and I love having a good time. I don’t, however, love drunk lads with balloon hats and fancy dress barfing on the floor and knocking into people and breaking glasses. It’s possible that I turned up a bit late, or I didn’t have enough to drink, or maybe I’m just too old… For whatever reason, I will not be attending this ‘festival’ again.
I do not want to say it was all bad. There was a Belgian beer vendor and of course a Unilocal table where I took away a great tote. I shouldn’t forget to mention the biltong vendor either. All of these things meant that I didn’t necessarily dislike the experience. Let’s just say I don’t have tickets for next year…

Here are some tips:
1. get a full pint glass, don’t be an idiot and get a half pint glass, because they’ll always over fill it.
2. if you see green wood chips on the ground walk around them. they are vomit.
3. offer to buy a round, they are only £6 for 4 people.
4. make sure you eat, those drinks will catch up to you, and since they are so cheap, you barely even realize it until you are already wasted.
5. Take a half day and go during a work day, all the good beers are gone by the weekend.
6. Make sure none of your colleagues are going to be there. Especially if you told them you were going to the Doctors so you could take a half day.
7. If you are interested in getting a winning beer, make sure you got there first.
8. And finally, BRING CASH, they only take cash there and the queue for the cash point is ridiculous.

Sitting on the floor in the middle of Earls Court exhibition centre it’s clear that I’ve had a fair bit to drink. But not surprising seeing as I’m at the beer festival!
This place is great, well, the beer is, and the ciders and perries are too. I’d expect nothing less from a festival celebrating 40 years of CAMRA though, but if only the festival were in a big field somewhere, I can’t help but feel that would be better! Ah well, it’s still pretty spectacular, and the drinks aren’t too bad either!

Check out the live camera here:
Can you find yourself enjoying a pint?

Another year comes and goes and yet another pilgrimage to the GBBF. I consider myself a veteran of these events and have followed them around the country as they wended their way from London, up north to Leeds, down south to Brighton and then back to London again. But they keep on getting bigger and better. The organisers of this event have learned (sometimes the hard way) how an event of this size can be put on. This year was excellent.
With over 800 beers on offer from the UK and from around the world, this really does live up to the hype of the largest pub in the world. The atmosphere is almost entirely good-​natured and the food on offer to mop up the vast quantities of alcohol is of good quality and wide variety (but of enormous expense!) but it’s the beer that’s the winner.
If you like beer then this should be an annual fixture. First week in August most years and an education in hop and malt second to none.

Just awesome. More beer than you could shake a stick at (who would want to?). The finest opportunity to indulge in a cornucopia of ales you’ll find in this city of ours. Lasting from the 3^rd until the 7^th of August (yes, there’s still time) in Earls’ Court CAMRA are showcasing their stocks for all (over 18s).
The evenings are busier and the £10 entry fee is a little high but it’s the biggest beer festival on these shores so I’d suggest putting it on your to do list. There’s plenty of food available from regular stuff to Ostrich burgers. I had some over-​priced (£6.50) but brilliant Haddock and chips.
I’ll squeeze in one more visit before it’s all over and start counting the days until the next one.
farewell, Ian

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hangover.

Such a great event. OK, the queue outside looks like a Fairport Convention gig & females are few & far between (this IS changing though, thankfully) but I would never miss it. There are beers from all continents in a simply HUGE variety. Check out the website… the choice is mind blowing! There are whole aisles covering different regional British ales and massive zones dedicated to mainland Europe’s finest. Even the US has a great showing & their tasty Californian IPAs are really worth a go; A very natural reaction to the bland-​out mainstream US fayre.
But there are important ground rules…
Don’t do this on an empty stomach. Load (lard!) up. Drink ¹⁄₃ pints primarily. Check the award winning ales in advance & queue early… they GO early. Go for session ales principally, a day on the Belgian beer is a short one… and messy!!! Pin your address to your lapel on departure, this will aid your fellow travellers in waking you up on the train when, in a state of advanced ‘over-​refreshment’, you doze off and miss your station. Oh yes, and keep a spare £30 on you for a taxi fare home from where it actually IS you wake up or put it towards a B&B if you wake up, as I am prone to do, by the coast at 1am. Classy.

I think this is a fun festival to visit with some friends. I also think it is fun if you are an experienced ale connoisseur and want to try some brews that you have not had before. The selection of beer is amazing and it is all good quality. There is entertainment (although when the main performers aren’t on the other stuff they have on stage seemed a bit lame) and there are plenty of food and fun stalls that could also divert your attention.
I would offer some words of caution however to help people enjoy the experience. Don’t overdo it. I don’t mean the alcohol. go aheadknock yourself out (perhaps quite literally). I mean. don’t go more than once. twice maximum. If you do, you may tire of all the people and long for a simple pint in a pub (I did!). If you don’t like the crowds and want to drop by one evening, go on Tuesday. If you want a whole daygo on Wednesday. Thursday onwards gets a bit busy. Thursday is also when you start noticing some ales have been drunk dry, so the same advice applies if you have a specific bevvie you want to get your hands on. If it is not pouring down with rain, try and go there without a coat. It gets quite hot inside and you’ll just have to carry it around everywhere. Same goes for brollies and jumpers.
So I enjoyed it but will enjoy it less often next year (when I will just turn up in my shorts on a Tuesday :))

the biggest and the best beer festival around
several hundred real ales
many traditional foreign beers and
ciders and perries
holds the champion beer of britain competition

You may think this is a mecca for the beirdy weirdy and that may be true to an extent but it’s also so much more.
The prize beers tend to go on the first day, but to be honest that’s a very minor set back. You are now able to buy drinks in 3^rd (of a pint measure) which may seem a bit girly but is does allow you to sample more.
They now have a good selection of world Lagers as well which is good becuase I do like both. Maybe they should have a bit more of a write up about these breweries like they do with the Ale.
It’s well worth a visit, just don#t ask for A carlsberg!

Awesome annual festival celebrating real British ale at Earl’s Court. It runs for a few evenings and a Saturday, usually in August.
Pay a tenner (£2 cheaper if you buy in advance, cheaper still if you’re a Campaign for Real Ale member) and attend any day you like. There are literally hundreds of ales, suiting all tastes and strengths, from every region of the UK. Buy a glass at entry, pay for pints, half pints or third-​pints, and return your glass for a refund at the end (or keep it).
There’s a huge amount of food, too, fro the traditional British pies and pork scratchings to Indian, Thai, hot dogs, and more.
Looking for funny beer shirts or pub paraphanelia? There’s lots on sale here. They even put on entertainment: brass bands, pub quizzes, and lots more.
All in all, an excelent community vibe for ale lovers.

(Originally posted on August 7, 2008 — this year’s GBBF is over, but I’ve made some corrections to my initial post.)
Two more days to go!
If you like real ale, don’t miss this year’s festival which is running until Saturday, August 9, 2008.
I agree with laurangutan and ahunter: Go for the ¹⁄₃ and pints and try to sample as many ales as possible.
The number of beers at the festival (over 450) can be overwhelming to a newcomer. I suggest picking up a copy of this year’s Champion Beer of Britain (
) winners’ list (at the CAMRA booth underneath the large CAMRA promo banner) and decide for yourself if you agree with the results.
And you should definitely get a copy of the official festival guide (£1, free to CAMRA (
) members like me ;-)). It features detailed descriptions of all ales. I may have missed wonderful taste experiences because I only was able to spend 4.5 hours at the festival yesterday and didn’t have sufficient time to study the guide as extensively as necessary
Video link:

The GBBF is the largest beer festival in the UK, and the main annual event organised by CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale).
This is the place to come and try the most extensive range of traditional British Beers assembled in one place. If you are new to real ale, it is a great opportunity to try different types to see which you like; if you’re already a fan, well, then there are literally hundreds to choose from.
Contrary to what some believe, the crowds here are always well behaved, and it is definitely not just for the beard and sandals brigade: in fact, a visit here will help put paid to any stereotypes you may have about who drinks real ale.
Food and all sorts of beer and pub memorabilia is also available. CAMRA members get a discount on entry, and on CAMRA publications bought here, so it’s worth thinking about joining, especially if you make more than one visit.

This year the Great British Beer Festival runs from 5 – 9 August 2008, at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre (see times below). It moved here in recent years as out grew its old venue at Olympia due to popularity.
If you fancy tasting load of British Ales then this is the place to go, although you can take your larger drinking friends too as there is an international larger section, as well as a cider and perry (pear cider) section.
You will need to pay an entrance fee, and then buy a 1/​3, ½, or pint sized glass, which you can keep or sell back at the end of the night.
My advice would be to buy a pint glass and then to sample as many beers as possible buy beer in ¹⁄₃ of a pint. After all the whole idea is to taste the beers and not just to drink copious amounts of the same beers.
Plenty of food stalls, pies, sausages curries, biltong etc. Also each night they have a band, and also stalls for shopping.
Check out the website for further details.
Tue 1700 to 2230
Wed, Thu, Fri 1200 to 2230
Sat 1100 to 1900

Jede“great British Beer Festival” statts jahr im Januar findet meistens in der Ausstellungshalle Earls Court das «Great British Beer Festival» statt. Testen, Spielen, versuchen, nüchtern nach Hause kommen. Über 400 Aussteller promoten hier ihr trationelles englisches Bier wie Ale etc.
Für Alkohologer ein lohnender Besuch. Ha, ha, ha, ha…

The Great British Beer Festival is THE event for lovers of good beer and real ciders in the UK.
Organised by CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) every August, in the last year it has moved to the Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre in London.
The event is huge: over the week, the festival gets over 65,000 visitors, drawn by the prospect of over 450 real ales, and a growing selection of the very best ciders, and specialist lagers from Germany, Belgium and the Czech Republic, to name a few. New in 2007 is a stand featuring ales for vegetarians, coeliacs and others with specialist dietary needs.
There’s plenty of food available, (with the emphasis on good-​value pub-​type grub, rather than gastronomy), and a selection of bands (mostly jazz, but including classical!) for entertainment over the week. There are also stalls selling ale-​related memorabilia — beer glasses, beer towels, books, t-​shirts and the like.
The event draws a huge range of people, from all walks of life and all ages. It’s not just a male, middle-​aged event by any means — about a third of attendees are women, and there are also meetings for CAMRA’s different groups, including LAGRAD (lesbians and gay men). The whole thing is very good humoured and enjoyable.
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An update for 2008, having just attended on the first day!
It’s still as big as ever, with over 450 real ales again this year. The layout is also improved on last year so it is easier to move around, and there are plenty of seating areas, too. There are some excellent discounts on CAMRA merchandise, and a slightly wider range of food, with Indian food stands adding to the mix this year.
The Champion Beer of Britain was named yesterday as Alton’s Pride brewed by Triple fff Brewery in Hampshire — a small, independent craft brewery which has won several prizes before, but not the big one!
Well worth a visit before its ends on Saturday 9^th — otherwise you’ll have to wait for next year!