GBBF - Great British Beer Fest - Help with beer choice!

[scotchpine]

Hey Sparge Perv, WTF is going on in Old London Town? All the riots and beatings and whatnot. I thought about your lot enjoying the festival and hoped you steered clear of all the chaos. Sounds like you did, but it seems the madness is ongoing. Drink safe. Cheers

[highoctane]

Haha, sounds like you had a good time Swazi!!
I didn't manage to get any of the RevCat Lambic, are they a good brewery? I've seen their beers around but never had them. I hadnt realised they were italian. I think it must have run out when I finally made it back to that bar. I was pleasantly surprised by the Italian beers - don't think I've had any before. I had an amazing IPA from White Dog (I think).

Did you try the imperial russian stout that had been aged in JD barrels? I can't remember the name of the brewery but it was on the same bar as the italian beers. I only got a taster of it. It was so so good, but there was no way I could drink anymore than a small taster!!

Highoctane - I really got into German beers over those few days at GBBF. Loved all the wheat beers and dunkels and tasty lagers. I was a bit disappointed by the Czech bar because the beer listing had loads and loads of interesting sounding dark lagers and ales but hardly any of them were actually on.

What did you guys think of the british ales? I didn't have very many as they were mostly very average beers. The stand out British beers for me came from the Thornbridge bar - their Chiron, an english take on an APA was niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice, as was Raven their dark IPA.

Anyone know why Meantime brewery wasn't their?

I don't think you missed much with the Czech bar. Only the very big companies were represented...but having a few dark lagers would have been nice.

I will be going to Oktoberfest next month and wanted to get a sneak preview of some of the different styles. I was pleasantly surprised by the options at GBBF from well loved breweries like Augustiner. I'm more excited than ever now for Sep 17th!

In terms of the ales, I'm a huge fan of Thornbridge and Darkstar for being on the experimental side and not being afraid to mix British with New World ingredients. Jaipur is obviously their flagship beer but nearly everything they do is fantastic. I haven't tried their APA yet...

Unfortunately, breweries like Meantime, Lovibonds, and BrewDog were not allowed at the festival because they do not serve their beers from cask. Being American, I find this quite stupid as CAMRA is going to campaign themselves into irrelevance if they don't start campaigning for good beer and not just cask beer. But, it's their festival and their rules.

Have you been to the Craft Beer Company at 82 Leather Rd in London yet? Absolutely fantastic beer bar with tons of options on tap you wont find anywhere else in England.

[Sparge Pervert]

ScotchPine - Parts of London were really bad last week. There was no real reason for any of it, all a bit mindless. I think a lot of people just got into the mob mentality mindset and it all snowballed from there... stupid c#@!s. I think we are lucky that only a few people died. I managed to stay clear of the chaos. I live in south east london in Woolwich and the town centre here got trashed - most of te shops smashed in and looted & a few shops and pub burnt out.

Octance; the only dark beer I saw on the Czech bar was Bernard Dark - which is a nice beer, but a regular beer in the Euston Tap. I was surpised by the amount of Budvar on the bar....
Oktoberfest will be awesome. One of my lifes ambitions is to go to a German Beer fest and drink from a 1l stein!
One of my favourite German beers is the Schneider Aventinus Weizen-Eisbock - definately not a session beer but bloody good!!

Don't even get me started on the CAMRA keg thing. Suffice to say that you really hit the nail on the head with this:

CAMRA is going to campaign themselves into irrelevance

I think CAMRA doesn't realise it's already saved "real ale". As an organisation its still doing good work promoting cask ale & I can't ever see it changing its remit. I think we need someone more focussed on great beer to take over the running of GBBF. After all it is the Great British BEER Fest and not the Great British CASK ALE Fest.... Anyway the less said the better. This is the sort of topic that could be debated to death (in fact the main reason I stopped using the CAMRA forums...)

I love the Craft Beer Co, although only ever been there once. They had a great range of cask ales and draft beers on.
Have you been to the Cask Pub and Kitchen (6 Charlwood Street, Pimlico, London, SW1V 6EE)? It's owned by the same people as the Craft Beer Co & has been around for a bit longer. Its got about the same number of cask ales and draft beers but a much more substantial range of bottles. Its also a lot bigger, but kind of lacks that pub atmosphere that Craft Beer Co has. Worth checking out if you enjoy the CBC though.

[Sparge Pervert]

Also, I'm not really sure why my hotlinking to my G+ photo is being so erratic... grrr!

[Swazi]

Ah yes... I remember having a Chiron from thornbridge while eating a stilton burger. I'm a big fan of thronbridge and have had a few of their beers at the euston tap. Right , here's my very short rant.... CAMRA can piss off, dicks.
The chavy looters can also fuck off. What made me laugh was they were looting places like Iceland and LIDL (lowest budget supermarkets), charity shops (second hand stuff deemed not good enough for fleabay) and pound land (everything is just £1). Absolute muppets.

I did have a few good british ales and one piss poor one. I was talking to someone at the fullers stand and he mentioned a beer that he thought was perfect. I duly hunted it down to find a glass full of butter with nowhere to pour it out.

All in all, an epic evening.