Great British Beer Festival London

Devon & Dorset bar at GBBF

I have just returned from a week in London at the Great British Beer Festival in Olympia and what a wonderful event this is. The word "Great" in the title is very appropriate indeed. It's the biggest beer festival in the UK, lasting for five days, attracting over 50,000 visitors with over 800 real ales and ciders, plus a huge range of bottled craft beers on offer.

The beer festival is manned by an army of volunteers from CAMRA. These are people who have day jobs so they are not experts in event organisation but one has to say they do a tremendous job. Also, serving this many beers at cellar temperature in a venue such as Olympia with its greenhouse effect natural lighting is no mean feat. 

The nice thing about the GBBF as its become known is the great spirit and atmosphere with which customers attend. It attracts a wide variety of people. From the tickers who rate beers, groups of friends on a night out, office workers looking for a beer after work to stag and hen parties that come on the Saturday. There is also a good proportion of ladies that attend and this is great to see.

GBBF is a real show case for cask conditioned beer. The first day features a trade session where licensees, brewers, buyers and others connected to the trade muster for a few hours of drinking and networking. The remaining days are for the general public to enjoy and they certainly do that, but then beer festivals are about more than just tasting delicious beers, they are a chance to socialise and meet new people, beer is just the common interest that brings them together.

GBBF is an event that CAMRA should feel very proud of and one that is going from strength to strength. If you get a chance to visit the festival in future years then do so, or try a local festival near you. it wont be on the grand scale of the London festival but you will enjoy yourself for sure. Well done CAMRA for the Great British Beer Festival and here's to the event in 2014.