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10 lessons from the CAMRA Beer Festival 2005

Drink // Jim // 23rd August 2005

Ten things I learnt by going to the CAMRA Beer Festival at Olympia again.

1. Don’t build supermarkets on top of bridges
They may be surging ahead in the battle for market share in the brutal supermarket wars. They may have bagged a bunch of famous celebs to provide the voiceovers for their latest round of oh so smug TV commercials. They may be raking in money into their big pigopolist trough quicker than we can spend it.

One thing Tesco haven’t managed though is to realise that if you build a big fucking supermarket on top of a railway bridge, there is a fair chance that the bridge is going to fall in. Every little helps? You complete twats.

On the up side despite the journey down to London being extended by an hour or so, the tickets are loads cheaper. Hopefully this is being personally subsidised by Prunella Scales and John Gordon Sinclair.

2. Stop trying to be funny Jim. You aren’t.
Her (receptionist at The Generator hostel): “Have you stayed here at the generator before?”

Me (Had a pint): “Yes”, comedy pause, “But I decided to come again anyway”

(Sounds of muffled laughter behind me)

Her (not impressed): “…”

Me (digging further): “Is there like a reward scheme or something?”

Her (disgusted beyond words): “No”

Me: “Right...”

Tumble weeds pass and the rest of the check-in process is carried out in horrible near-silence while we try not to sneak out embarrassed laughter at the fact that there is a crass breakfast promotion poster promising that you can “eat toast till you EXPLODE!” not far from where some of the recent bombings occurred.

3. Biro etiquette in pubs
For some obscure drunken reason you want to write something on a person’s arm, yet the biro you are trying to use is not forthcoming.
The best thing is probably to scribble hard with the biro to get the ink going, however you should probably do this on a bit of paper rather than the afore mentioned arm.

That’s not really polite is it?

4. Shockingly it turns out that American beer is rather good (sort of)
I realise that any form of suspense has been utterly ruined by the line above; I’ll run through what we thought of the beer we drank at the CAMRA beer festival in Olympia anyway. Initially a cunning plan was hatched for Steve to take photos of us holding up how many fingers out of ten each drink scored. It all got a bit confusing but I’ve tried my best to reconstruct things, so here we go:

Beer scoring: Good idea at the time, finger confusion.

Baltika 6 Stout:
Confidence buoyed by an earlier pint and avoiding any unpleasantness on the tube, we go for broke with our first choice, bottles of what could probably be described as Spetsnaz Guiness. Tasted good and a hearty Cossack kick to the system, thumbs up. 7/10

Thwaites Craftsman:
Really did smell of sweaty socks quite a lot. The bloke on the stand wasn’t all that amused when I asked if it was pronounced “Twat’s”. Potent, but you ain’t going to be happy with this on your breath in the morning. 6/10

Thwaites “Other one, it was sort of, like, darkish and yummy”
… that description was brought to you by someone who really is a trained journalist. Very good apparently, didn’t have any myself but those who did raved. Still smelt of socks though but maybe not as sweaty as the Craftsman. 8/10

Waase Wolf
Somewhere between lager and a hearty broth, this beer was swarming with all sorts of stuff. Sweet and tasty but flossing would probably be required after prolonged exposure. The ideal drink for the man looking to cut down on the post pub kebabs – you’ll be stuffed after a few of these. Like Orangina in terms of consistency. 7/10

Casta Moreno
It was time to swallow our pride and see what the Yanks could serve up and amazingly it was ace. It was a strong, dark beer that tasted a bit of liquorice and (strangely) Christmas pudding. So good we nearly forgave them for Budweiser and one of the invasions of Iraq. Not sure if you could drink a great deal of this without a call to uncle Huey, but I’ll wager it tastes the same on the way up as it did n the way down, so not a complete disaster. 9/10. HANG ON, IT'S BLOODY MEXICAN!, I knew there was something amiss. Shame on you USA trying to pass this off as your own by slapping your flags all over the stall, still it usually works eh?

Casta Dorada
Lighter version of Casta Moreno, more liquorice, less Christmas pudding. Still very nice though. This was the point at which I realised that I had subtly tipped over from pleasantly tipsy to drunk, a landmark moment in any afternoon/night out and the signal to take slightly more care when visiting the gents. 7/10.

Abbot Ale:
Dull as ditchwater, which it may well have been, not really sure by this stage. 4/10

Some notes on the CAMRA beer festival:
As with last year I would definitely recommend that you give it a go next year, when I believe it is at Earls Court instead.
The problem with leaving it ‘till the last afternoon like we did is that a lot of the stalls have run out although there was plenty left. Also you are going to have to sit on the floor, which isn’t too bad as it is very difficult to fall off.
The CAMRA people who walk around with their tankards strapped to their hips like alcoholic cowboys, are good value for a chuckle. Plus there was a better age/sex spread this time round, I wouldn’t bother going to a beer festival on the sniff though, it isn’t going to work out too well, is it?.

5. Taking photos
There are many schools of though about what makes the ideal photograph, some favour the epic while others prefer the intimate. The lomo movement has popularised the rough and ready shoot from the hip, punk ideal. On the other hand you have the likes of Andreas Gursky with his epic large format, near abstract studies of offices and trading floors.

Despite their idealistic and aesthetic differences most top photographers would probably agree on one key point; making sure you have put some fucking film in the camera is pretty much de rigour.

How gutted was I?

6. If you fancy a coffee in Soho, go to Bar Italia
We went to the corporate coffee shack across the way, mainly because in our delicate state we wanted to be near somewhere with an easily accessible toilet. However we (or more accurately, I) sat in hung-over contentment and gazed across the road at the amazing (and I do mean amazing) waitresses of Bar Italia as they ferried cappuccinos, cleared tables had their arses pinched by middle aged men - all in the building where television was first demonstrated by John Logie Baird.

Bar Italia: Where we didn't go, arse pinching

7. Vanessa is a food tardis
Post beer festival it was off for noodles on Kensington High Street, while Steve and Jim W carried on their quaint little tradition of ordering for each other, Vanessa took delivery of a huge bowl of steaming noodles and half a chicken in soup. It was easily bigger than her by quite some distance. Half an hour later and the whole lot had gone. How? Where? I doubt we will ever really know.

8. No-one really knows where they are going in London
Especially pissed people from the Midlands and most especially, me.

Later on in the evening we arrange to meet Nick in some swanky pub near Wardour Street. Strolling down Oxford street (after an extended debate about which way to turn out of the tube) we all act like we sort of know where we are going. Which we don’t.

Eventually I phone Nick for directions, only to discover that he is standing about 10 yards away having stepped ouside to look for us. Good lad.

9. The NME still has the power to entertain me
Horrendous sixth form fanzine it may be, but one article in the NME reduced me to girly laughter for a good half an hour on the way home. If you have the issue from the other week check out the article on the band called Circulus. I don’t know whether it was a piss-take or not but I laughed like an idiot for some time especially the bit about how their manager “fucking hates that band”.

That photo too, christ I laughed.

10. England are now a lot better at cricket than before
It had to happen at some point; happily it happened when we were staying in a hostel full of Australian types.

Thank you, Andrew Flintoff.