NEWCASTLE BEER FESTIVAL 2016

Well,  Ive just visited the Newcastle Beer Festival for the umpteenth time. It was held in the Northumbria Uni Students Union and as usual it was standing room only, mainly because there were only a couple of tables and a few stools.

There are 3 problems with this :-

1. You drink more beer standing up.

2  The beers warms quicker in the glass being in constant contact with the hand

3. You invariably have to take your glass with you to the gents.

Luckily, we managed to grab one of the tables so were set for the evening. 

I'm still recovering from the Tiny Rebel Stay Puft ( a marshmallow porter) and the 11.5% Barrel Aged Orkney Porter, among many others.
 

Anyhow , before it moved to this venue it was held in the Kings Building, Newcastle University, with seating in the main bar area and in the adjacent cafeteria. Personally , a much better location but it had become too small.

My last visit to the Kings Building festival was a bit of a disaster however.

It was 2007 and  Mrs Ken and I had been on holiday in Cyprus and our flight back was due in Newcastle Airport at about 6 ish. I had arranged to meet a friend,  who was travelling up from the Midlands on a family visit, at the Beer Festival .  His name was first on my phone ( not a smartphone) contacts list and I put the phone in my bum bag I was wearing on the bus to the airport from the hotel. Unbeknownst to me every time I moved,  the phone was sending out a short text " da da da" This must have gone on for about 30 mins. He was driving up the M1 getting all these texts and having no means of stopping them ( other than switching the phone off of course)

Obviously I switched it off at check in and then on arrival in Newcastle, I texted my mate to say we were here. Mrs Ken then drove home with the cases and  I caught the Tyne and Wear Metro into the city centre.

I got off the Metro and crossed over the street to the festival venue  to find it was closed. They had run out of beer !. I then got a text saying my friend had arrived in  the Crows Nest pub nearby with his wife.  I headed for the pub, gagging for a pint, then was confronted by a bouncer on the door who said, " Do you have any ID please sir ?".

"Your f***ing joking aren't you ?" my mate lip read me saying through the window.

Then I noticed him  and his wife through the window pissing themselves laughing. As an act of revenge for the multiple texts,  he had tipped the bouncer off to  challenge me. Bastard.