Month: August 2011

Low-strength new wave not only fit for a nanny state

Whether it’s age, a diminishing ability to consumer large quantities of alcohol, or a growing sense of accountability to my employer (or probably some combination of all three), I’m increasingly finding myself drawn to the concept of low-alcohol beers.

Not the no-alcohol Barbicans, Clausthalers, or “alkoholfrei” versions of big-brand German beers such as Erdinger or Bitburger. Nor the traditional but generally uninspiring Belgian tafelbiers, Swedish folköl’s and the like. Nor, for that matter, anachronistic British beer survivors such as Manns Brown Ale and Tennent’s Sweetheart Stout. Rather, my interest lies in a new wave of beers designed from the outset to appeal to serious beer drinkers in situations where they would rather not imbibe too heavily.

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Czech it out! Bohemian beers get my vote at GBBF as Essex is again The Only Way

Tuesday’s opening night at The Great British Beer Festival 2011 marked the 21st consecutive year that I’ve made the pilgrimage to this temple of beer. Ever since the festival made its permanent home in London, in fact, although the current event bears little resemblance to the one-off edition that began my adventure at the London Docklands Arena in 1991.CAMRA clearly learned a lot from that Dantean Inferno of an event, which – on the day I visited at least – saw most of the beers on offer dispensed at a temperature more akin to that of a brew kettle at full blast than that of a cool cellar. GBBF moved the next year to the greater expanse of Olympia where it stayed until 2005 (it’s going back in 2012) while barrel cooling jackets rapidly became de rigueur at all CAMRA festivals. The overall excellent condition of the various tipples sampled on Tuesday night at Earls Court, which would largely have passed muster in a Good Beer Guide-listed pub, is testament to the skill and knowledge that the Campaign’s volunteer army brings to the World’s biggest bar.