Great British Beer Festival 2009 Part One
The GBBF is Britain’s largest beer festival, and as soon as you step through into the main hall at Earl’s Court you can see why. As mentioned in our previews last week, it’s the sheer scale that makes this a step up from any other festival – hundreds of beers, dozens of bars, thousands of silly hats. It’s very tough to know where to start – so as with other beer festivals a random pick is always good, something to drink while concentrating on the epic programme to pick what to have next.
1. Funfair Dive Bomber (4.6%) Derbyshire
Always a good idea to start with a golden ale, to appreciate the delicate hop aromas and flavours before the stronger things take over. Dive Bomber is certainly golden and subtle – maybe too subtle for me, there’s not much zing there. It’s certainly refreshing for a hot day, which it was outside. A light one to start with.
2. Cains IPA (3.5%) Merseyside
Liverpool’s Cains Brewery were one of the many larger producers who had their own bar at the festival. I’m a fan of their other beers, but had not tried their IPA until I wandered past and decided to give it a go. For a start, it’s copper-coloured, and is very creamy. Very little – if any – hops come through at all. It tastes like a canned bitter rather than an IPA.
3. Salopian Shropshire Gold (3.8%) Shropshire
Salopian are a Shropshire brewery that are new to me, so I decided to go for another light golden ale when I passed the ‘Mid-West England’ bar. The printed tasting notes describe an ’unusual blend of body and dryness’ – and they are right. There was a very dry spicy elderflower taste to it, with a subtle but noticeable finish of ginger. Very nice, and very refreshing.
4. Cricket Hill Colonel Blides ESB (5.5%) New Jersey
After the excitement of writing the International beer list preview, the American bar was something of a disappointment. Only half a dozen beers on tap, with a big queue for a fridge of bottles. Not to worry, I went for one of the kegged ales in the form of an ESB from the Cricket Hill Brewery in Fairfield, New Jersey. It was totally flat, but tasted good – plenty of malt and a little hop to back it up, nothing really overpowering (to be expected at a restrained 5.5%), although having said that the mild flavours didn’t give away much alcohol. Could be dangerous on a session, this one.
5. Marble Lagonda IPA (5.0%) Manchester
Time for another IPA – and I managed to find one I had been looking for since the beer list was published on CAMRA’s website. Manchester’s Marble Brewery put a quadruple addition of hops into Lagonda IPA, and you can certainly tell. Dark, strong golden colours and a similarly strong taste, almost hints of Camembert cheeseyness at the end. Very good indeed, the hops really sing from this.
6. St Austell Black Prince (4.0%) Cornwall
To finish, a darker offering – Cornwall’s St Austell brewery put out some great beers indeed, so an unknown dark mahogany bitter sounded good. It was really well balanced, as you’d expect from St Austell, some molasses sweetness and roasty malt. It was pretty hoppy, too – and I was searching for ages what the aftertaste reminded me of, until I came up with it – sugared tea.
On that note, maybe it was time to finish. Beer of the day – Marble’s Lagonda IPA. T-Shirt of the day – Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder. We’ll be back at Earl’s Court for more GBBF fun tomorrow. Tune into our Twitter feed (@thebeercast) for live updates, and check back here later for a report.
