The BeerCast

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.

Sierra Nevada will have a wide range of their beers available

Following on from last week’s preview of the domestic ales on offer at the upcoming Great British Beer Festival, the Global beer list has also been released by CAMRA. This provides another few hundred choice brews to tempt a thirsty punter, keen to sample things from far and wide. For example, there are beers from Sri Lanka - Ceylon Breweries Lion Stout (8%), Jamaica – Desnoes & Geddes Dragon Stout (7.5%), and Spain – Los Aguillones Pura Pale (5%). The last of these is an English-style pale ale brewed near Barcelona, and certainly sounds worth checking out, as do the two other strong stouts.

Perhaps unsurprisingly there are more ‘English-style’ ales on offer besides the Pura Pale – many from over the Atlantic. Moat Mountain’s Moat Brown Ale (5.4%) is a British-style Brown Ale with caramel maltiness that makes it sound almost Scottish. Salem Beer Works Bay State ESB (5.5%) was brewed with British yeast and Burtonised water, and Gardner Ale House’s Facelift IPA (6.3%) stems from a traditional English recipe, using native UK hops. East Kent Goldings are a prime ingredient in Gritty McDuff’s Best Bitter (4.9%), which sounds a must-try for a bitter-loving Northerner like myself.

There are many American ales on offer – which for me means zappy hop-filled IPA’s, and quiveringly strong unusual beers. IPA’s are well represented - for example Ballast Point Big Eye IPA (7%) from San Diego, Amherst Seeing Double IPA (6.6%), and Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA (7.4%) all sound really tempting. As does Lagunitas IPA (5.7%), from the Californian town of the same name, as it apparently contains 43 different hops and “65 various malts”. Stronger offerings can be found from Dogfish Head – their Palo Santo Marron is a 12% brown ale aged with Paraguayan wood and organic sugar. Allagash’s Interlude is a 10.5% saison fermented with Brettanomyces yeast, and Victory V-Twelve (12%) is an amber ale with hints of pear and apricot in the flavour.

There are many European beers available too, such as a healthy selection from the rapidly increasing Italian real ale market. 32 Via Dei Birrai Oppale (5.5%) is a cloudy IPA with a dry bitter finish of chives, Grado Plato’s Strada San Felice is an 8% chestnut beer, and Ducato Verdi (8.2%) is an imperial porter spiced with red chilli. Also sure to be on many people’s wishlists is Torrechiara Divina (5.5%), Italy’s first, and so far only, spontaneously fermenting Belgian-style lambic. They aren’t shy about trying unusual combinations, it seems – another example being the wonderfully named Revelation Cat Woodwork Series Reference (11%), which combines New Zealand hops, Munich malts, and champagne yeast.

As with the British beers though, given a limited time (and capacity) it’ll be the unusual or rarer beers that might be worth seeking out – assuming they remain long enough for you to find them. Budweiser Budvar Krouzkovany Lezak (5%) sees a rare appearance of the yeast lager from the Czech giants, which is almost never seen outside of fifty select Budvar outlets in their home country. Widmer Brothers Drifter Pale Ale (5.7%) is brewed with a newly released variety of hop – Summit – apparently known for it’s intense citrusy aroma and flavour, which is probably why it would appeal to the American craft beer industry. And us BeerCasters too, of course – check back during the first week of August to catch our reports, or follow us on Twitter for live updates.