Start of the season
I've just come back from a few days dog walking in Cornwall so I haven't a clue what's been going on. What I do know is that upon my return yesterday, there were a couple of complimentary tickets for the Gosport Winterfest waiting for me. There can be no better way of spending a damp Saturday afternoon than supping good beer in good company, so Ray and I tootled off to sunny Gosport.
This has always been one of my favourite festivals. It's small enough to be personal and accessible and it's large enough to provide you with a choice of nearly 100 different beers plus Mr. Bleach's astounding range of bottles. It's also a great place to meet up with people you haven't seen for a while and as we have been out of the 'loop' there was a hell of a lot of them. Having tried a lot of beers, all in top form, (Ray tried rather more as he wasn't driving) we came to the conclusion that beer of the festival should be Fynne Ales 'Avalanche'. Seek it out if you can. It's wonderful!
What a lot of people don't realise is that all of these CAMRA beer festivals are organised and run entirely by volunteers. What even more people don't realise is the massive amount of planning, sourcing beers, setting up, staffing and much much more that has to be done before Joe Public (and I include myself in that) can waltz through the door and start quaffing beers and ales served in superb condition. And this is happening all over the country. When it comes to The Great British Beer Festival people take a whole week off work just to take part in that amazing festival. On a selfish level, these local festivals provide a showcase for our beers and also a means of getting our name out amongst the drinking public. I have often said, and it does bear repeating, that if it were not for The Campaign for Real Ale, brewers like us would not be in existence. We owe these people a huge debt. You do not have to go back many years to find yourself in that awful period of the past where the only thing to drink in your local was some vile crap that had about as much to do with beer as Big Brother has to do with entertainment. You could then drive from Southampton to Scunthorpe only to be presented with the same insipid crap but possibly under a different label. These days are, thank God, over. Hats off Ladies and Gentlemen!
More later.......
This has always been one of my favourite festivals. It's small enough to be personal and accessible and it's large enough to provide you with a choice of nearly 100 different beers plus Mr. Bleach's astounding range of bottles. It's also a great place to meet up with people you haven't seen for a while and as we have been out of the 'loop' there was a hell of a lot of them. Having tried a lot of beers, all in top form, (Ray tried rather more as he wasn't driving) we came to the conclusion that beer of the festival should be Fynne Ales 'Avalanche'. Seek it out if you can. It's wonderful!
What a lot of people don't realise is that all of these CAMRA beer festivals are organised and run entirely by volunteers. What even more people don't realise is the massive amount of planning, sourcing beers, setting up, staffing and much much more that has to be done before Joe Public (and I include myself in that) can waltz through the door and start quaffing beers and ales served in superb condition. And this is happening all over the country. When it comes to The Great British Beer Festival people take a whole week off work just to take part in that amazing festival. On a selfish level, these local festivals provide a showcase for our beers and also a means of getting our name out amongst the drinking public. I have often said, and it does bear repeating, that if it were not for The Campaign for Real Ale, brewers like us would not be in existence. We owe these people a huge debt. You do not have to go back many years to find yourself in that awful period of the past where the only thing to drink in your local was some vile crap that had about as much to do with beer as Big Brother has to do with entertainment. You could then drive from Southampton to Scunthorpe only to be presented with the same insipid crap but possibly under a different label. These days are, thank God, over. Hats off Ladies and Gentlemen!
More later.......
