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Great British Beer Festival 2006

Drink // Jim // 13th August 2006

At the end of possibly the laziest, most pointless (yet still very relaxing) week off work I have yet to waste my leave days on, it is time to head down to London for our third annual outing to the CAMRA beer festival. Being a Friday morning, the train is pretty quiet, there is a lone nutter prowling the carriage but he is more intent on bothering a couple of girls than me – I'm not offended.

Once down in the smoke I get on the slowest moving tube train of all time to, eventually, meet Steve and Jim W in the picturesque and historical Head Of Steam pub near Euston Station. They have already scoffed a breakfast in Browns, I opt for a minging scampi and ill-advised Carling while we watch England start to beat Pakistan and memorise the door code to get into the gents.

A quick stroll down the Euston Road to the historical and picturesque California Hotel, bang opposite Kings Cross, that I have booked us in for the evening. Fortunately it is three single beds rather than a single and a double – so I won’t have to endure the other two arguing all night about who is hogging the duvet.

Vanessa has bottled it, something about “a wedding”. Juliet and Max have bottled it too, something about her “going into labour”. Lightweights. Anyway we have an uneventful tube trip down to Earls Court, are quickly relieved of seven quid and ushered into Earls Court by CAMRA stewards in bright orange t-shirts. One of them is barely over-weight at all - Jim W points out that he is probably some form of apprentice.

Earls Court is a big old place but it isn’t exactly full of character, Olympia had a bit more charm to it, on the other hand the whole thing seems much bigger and more spaced out. Even at this stage I am up to number three in my own little game of counting the people who look like they could have been extras in Lord Of The Rings without requiring much attention from the wardrobe or make-up departments.

Beer Festival: Earls Court, grey

We head first to the Beers Sans Frontieres section where they keep the dangerous foreign stuff guarded by an elite squad of men who really shouldn’t be wearing shorts. Blonde Christine from Denmark is behind the bar as I order three bottles of Bink Blonde, she mis-hears and thinks I have asked for something involving a “Big Blonde”, this could be a sticky situation but fortunately things are resolved in a good humoured manner and she recommends that we have some Trappist beer next. Bottoms up.
Oh no! There is some terrible prog-folk music act going on in the corner. Oh, hang on they’ve fucked off, thank God for that.

Bink Blonde (says 5.5% on the bottle but it seems a lot stronger)
A tasty, sweet Blonde that will probably leave you staggering about with a headache and no money. In other words: Great.

It is Steve’s turn to choose next and seeing as the Bink seemed a bit on the strong side he feels that it is time for a crack at Rowley Mild, which turns out to be about as exciting as a lukewarm bath. This is also the point in time where we have to initially investigate the toilet situation, even at this early stage there is a certain amount of queuing going on. Everything is fairly civil, someone tells Steve that things are generally much wilder in the gents at the Norwich beer festival. On hearing this I make a mental note to never visit Norwich, and especially not their beer festival.

Rowley Mild (3.2%)
Chocolate toilet water. The beer equivalent of a big yawn.

Next Jim W strolls up to the bar and asks for a Gobble with an admirably straight face. We get three bottles of this which is about a thousand times batter than that Rowley cack and stroll round to get a very tasty, but hilariously expensive roast beef batch.

Gobble (4.0%)
IPA-ish. Nice but a bit on the dull side for my liking. “Ooh, this would be nice on a hot summer’s day,” says Steve, momentarily turning into Oscar Wilde.

Right enough of this poncing about with English bitter, my choice leads us back to the crazy foreign section. First thing we spot is the scary geezer who sold us the absolutely terrifying Lambriek stuff a couple of years back, Jim W tries to take some pictures of him (presumably to pass on to the Police/Tabloids) I seriously doubt that he will actually show up on film.
Unable to get hold of the Trappist stuff we were recommended previously I go for the cheekily named Troublette, which lives up to its name by getting Steve all concerned about his state of inebriation. I reckon we should go for the Sri Lankan stand next but I ain’t getting much support.

Troublette (5.5%)
Wheaty and meaty. Very fizzy and almost certain to make your legs stop working properly after a few. Crap name though.

At this point I get news from Jane that this really flash beer she previously told me about is called Deus, have a quick look for it but doesn’t seem to be there [NOTE: Having since discovered that this stuff can change hands for up to £32 a bottle, this was probably a good thing]. Instead we go to the USA stand and go for the Sierra Nevada Stout. Blimey, it’s a touch on the heavy side.

Sierra Nevada Stout (5.8%)
This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m having trouble believing that this Guinness on steroids type stuff is what a cowboy likes after a hard day on the ranch. All the same, quite good really.

At this point it is democratically decided to call it quits, I am in the minority and want to have a couple more, but the lack of any natural light at all has magnified the usual strength-sapping effects of afternoon drinking and it is probably for the best. Try to go for a quick slash, but the wait for the gents is a good ten minutes or so, time flies by thanks to some awfully witty Australian chaps in the queue – oh how I wept with laughter.

We walk out into the harsh daylight and realise we are all looking a bit bedraggled, jumping on the tube into the middle of town to find a pub that Steve knows near Covent Garden. I make a pathetic plea that we get off at Leicester Square, because I hate the big scary elevators at Covent Garden, fortunately the others are as sensitive as me. The pub that Steve wants to go to is called The Salisbury. Can we find it? Can we fuck.

Needing liquid refreshment we dive into a place called “Hops!”, which is appalling in almost every way. Pints of lime and soda are eventually procured from a geezer who isn’t going to be winning Barman of The Year any time soon. Refreshed, we have a stroll round and find The Salisbury almost by accident. For future reference it is next to the Noel Coward Theatre where they are currently showing the rude puppet affair Avenue Q.

Outside pub: Ash, Noel Coward

We get a pint and sit outside, the people behind us cover me in cigarette ash and act like twats, flicking through Time Out there is talk of heading over to Tate Modern where Scritti Politti and others are playing at some sort of free musical soiree. Chairman Steve dismissively puts an end to such plans and thoughts instead turn to food. London sophisticate Sarah arrives, looking very business-like, so we head off for noodles where we manage to upset the staff by paying the bill almost entirely with the loose change I have somehow managed to collect over the course of the day.

Sarah tries to take us to some Canadian bar which looks awful to a bunch of miserable old sods like us so instead we head into a pub designed for miserable old sods i.e. where we can get a seat and talk shite. Steve plays “guess the mystery bitter”, Jim W moves to Corona and I drink Amstel. Sarah tells us about London house prices (shocking) and about going on the sniff for Australian blokes at 333 the next night. [NOTE: Unfortunately it seems that this didn’t quite go according to plan, you can read about it on her blog here – expect Kinski Uncut crossed with Just 17] As usual talk turns to films and books until central London closes at eleven pm and we head back to the hotel.

For £25 the California Hotel isn’t bad. The bed was a bit on the itchy side and there was a disturbing cat-like figurine thing the in room. The sound of the roadworks outside was pretty loud, but on the positive side it did drown out the snoring. Other plusses for the California include
- TV in the room (might have worked, didn’t try)
- Kettle etc
- Private bathroom with a quite good shower
- Nice breakfast thrown in, although the décor in the breakfast room was fairly rough.
- A very civil check-out time of 11am.

Have a bit of trouble getting off to sleep and have to resort to slapping Moon Safari on the iPod. At least this time no-one is throwing up every twenty minutes, although Steve’s bladder is playing up and he has to go for a series of Naked Gun style slashes. I dream of waterfalls and road works...

Some well appointed links...

CAMRA web site

Mildly scary people who definitely like a drink.

The California Hotel

Not a bad place to stay, bit noisy outside mind.