How to Survive a Beer Festival

Well with the football season , almost out of the way, I’m looking forward to concentrating on another great British tradition, the beer festival.  The first ever London's Brewing organised by the London Brewers' Alliance (londonsbrewing.co.uk) took place over the weekend of 3-5 May and first reports sound encouraging although apparently a bit more organisation was required.   

Then of course there is the Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) at Olympia (gbbf.org.uk) in August which is a must.

Now of course it does in part depend on what your aim is, but any enjoyable festival trip will usually leave you a tad sozzled. If your aim is to sample some new beers and remember them for the future I hope the following will help.

1. Book your tickets in advance and do a little homework

This will save you queueing on arrival and immediately get down to the job in hand.  If you know in advance the layout of the festival, you'll know what they have on offer and where it is so that you won't miss out on anything. 

2. Arrive early

Its not the most fashionable thing to do these days but its worth it.  Less queues, less danger of beers running out and you'll avoid the scrums of sozzled people all vying for a sample.  You will also avoid the after work hoards

3. Graze and snack.  Its very easy to fill up on the beer

4. Try and order your drinks according to some sort of strength

Start with the lighter pale ales and session beers and them finish off with the crazy stuff.  If you immediately dive into the strong beers your palate will be ruined and anything else after that will just taste like water. 

A friend of mine did this at a recent event starting with a German rauchbier (smoke beer) at 8%.  After that all of his drinks tasted like a barbecue in his mouth.

Alternatively, I sometimes just stick to one style of beer during the whole session.

Lovely drop of Ale at GBBF

5. Use your smart phone

If like me you wish to impart your experience in a blog, it’s pretty difficult to keep tabs on all the beers you tried so just take a photo of each of them.  This will also give you a chronological order  The photo shown is one I took at last year’s GBBF .  You could use your electronic note pad or email to write notes or just stick your thumb up or down in the picture to indicate your approval of said beer.

6. Ask!

Beer festivals are usually staffed by volunteers but some of the specialist stands or larger breweries will have staff from the breweries on hand.  Many will have had an opportunity to sample or will have had feedback from other festival goers and it doesn’t do any harm to get an idea of a beer's characteristics before you buy from the person manning the pumps.

7. Its not about the volume

The introduction of the third of a pint measure is a recent but thoroughly sensible innovation that has appeared at beer festivals.  You don’t even have to stick with a third pint glass as the full pint glasses have third and half pint markers down the side of them.  Remember, if you like a beer you can always come back for more.  It may be sacrilege in some people's books but don’t be afraid to throw away drinks you don’t like them, or even better share them with a friend. 

8. Have fun!

The most important rule which goes without saying and if it means throwing all this guidance out the window then I say go for it !!