GBBF 2006









I've be waiting for it all year since I attended last year and finally it came around again. For a beer nut like myself, it is like going to heaven. For those of you I haven't bored silly by describing it before, the Great British Beer Festival is an annual 6-day event organised by CAMRA. This year they had a record 66,000 visitors and over 450 real ales available to try (many of which I wouldn't normally get the chance to get).

Because of trips either side of the festival, I could only get to the festival two nights - Tuesday and Thursday. However, I was determined to make the most of those nights as well as pulling along as many GBBF novices as possible. Tuesday night was probably the pick of the two nights, being opening day it was a little quieter, so we managed to grab ourselves a table and didn't have to wait to be served all night. I managed to taste 8 new beers - half pints are the order of the day, allows you to taste more and also gives you the chance of getting poured too much (3/4 pints are not uncommon - the pick of the night being the Alcazar Mocha Stout. I managed to pull along a few more for the Thursday night, which was a lot busier. However, this didn't stop us getting to a few more tasty ales, 9 for me on this night, the pick being the gravity-fed Northern Two Tone Special.

A list of other ales tasted - Castle Rock Flying Ant, Arundel Sussex Gold, Ossett Yorkshire Glory, Naylors Sparkeys Monday Night Mild, Mallard Waddlers Mild, Sierra Nevada Porter, Why Not Chocolate Nutter, Triple fff Moondance, Beartown Ambeardextrous, Stewart Edinburgh #3, Glastonbury Mystery Tor, Bradfield Farmers Brown Cow, Brown Cow How Now, Buffys Mild, Burton Bridge Empire Ale.

Not a bad one among them and all a treat.