MY FIRST ONLINE BEER FESTIVAL

 

I have been visiting the Great British Beer Festival since 2005, meeting up with the same guys for most of these years, some former work colleagues. Last year it was a great disappointment that it was cancelled, as it will be this year. Ive also been to three winter beer festivals, including last years in Birmingham, again with some of the same group..

One of these Winters ones was in the National Cycling Centre in Manchester, held in the middle of the cycling track in 2014 . I remember Laura Trott whizzing past every minute training for the Olympics.

With that background and considering the fact I have now missed two national festivals it was time to address this. The group I meet up with are from all over the UK so when it was announced that CAMRA would be holding a virtual Winter Festival in March, some likeminded thought waves travelled the UK and agreed that , rather than join an official one, we would have our own. On the same day as the official one !

So last Friday, without knowing how it would go, seven of us joined in a zoom call for a few hours. Beer had been sought from various places ; online, supermarkets and one guy from his own home brew in his garage. 

I had explained what beers I would be having with Mrs Ken a few weeks before and mentioned a few I always drank.  She reminded me the whole point of doing a beer festival was to try some I hadn’t tasted before. Fair enough. I also decided that , like a real festival, I would drink halves, so 330ml bottles. Winter festivals focus on dark strong warming beers so that was factored in to my choice.

So, placing an order online,  I had six delivered but unfortunately drank half of them well before last Friday. This left me raiding my secret stash in the garage and so came up with this list, all 330ml bottles :-

De Konick Belgian Amber Beer with the unfortunate name of Bollecke ( 5%)

Ayinger Celebrator 6.7% Bock  

Westmalle Dubbel 7% Trappist Ale

Sam Smiths 7% Imperial Stout

Tynt Meadow 7.4% English Trappist Ale

Robinsons Old Tom  8.5%

I had thought we would soon run out of things to talk about, but no chance. We were treated to a brief garage brewery tour, showing his brewing vessels etc and what kits he brewed. I noticed a stash of bottles on a shelf as well.Obviously a worthwhile retirement and lockdown hobby. Just waiting for the invite now. 

We then touched on such diverse subjects as the vaccination rollout ( we had all had one), sewage farms, what we did during the lockdown(s)  and pony tails. I should explain the last one. 

During the summer my hair got rather long so decided to have a pony tail. Ok it was only just over an inch long, but even so. Then one chap, who used to work at the sewage farm in question stated that before his very first job interview he had very long hair, which he proceeded to have removed. " Ive still got it, if you all want to see" So disappeared out of shot for less than two minutes and reappeared proudly waved this brown hairy thing which was over a foot long.      (he had kept his pony tail, in case you had other thoughts!) 

The way I see it, there are several things wrong with this 

1. He has kept it all this time

2. It only took him under two minutes to find it.

3. We all marvelled at this ( well I think we all did.) It could have been a tail off a real pony for all we knew.    

At a real festival you wander off, check out the bars, have a natter, find the loo and return to the table and drink your beer. Obviously  this time there wasn't much wandering off so I managed to get through all my beers in over four hours that our session lasted. It was a great way of catching up with the guys and given that wont be a GBBF this year, I feel another one of these coming on.

One final thing. At GBBF 2009 at Earls Court nine of us met and we all wore the same t shirt. - Sorry, not all of us wearing one shirt. Ive still got it after 12 years but its getting a bit tight round the middle now ( it's a Large ) 

When CAMRA recently asked for photographs to celebrate the 50th, I submitted it, and its there ! 

Follow the link below, we are on page 1, bottom row. I'm third from right with the dodgy looking zip. 

On page six there is a photo of a Vaux Brewery March which I had not seen before.

 https://camra.org.uk/50-years/50th-anniversary-photo-gallery/

 So a great time was had by all and we all agreed we need to meet up in person as soon as we can, and are all waiting for the pubs to open. I'll drink to that.