Just a reminder that the 18th Battersea Beer Festival kicks off today. It's being held in the Grand Hall at the Battersea Arts Centre on Lavender Hill (SW11 5TN, directions) and is open Wednesday to Friday, from noon to 11pm each day. Admission is £2 before 5pm, £3 afterwards, with a £1 discount for CAMRA members. There'll be 100 real ales, ciders and perries, an international beer bar and food.
Never trust people who think beer subdivides into "lager", "bitter" and "Guinness".
Never trust people who say they like chain bars because "they always know what they're getting".
Never trust people who list "socialising" as an interest on their CV.
Never trust people who can't give a straightforward answer when you ask them where they're from.
Never trust people who invite you on skiing trips when you have never expressed any interest in the sport (or indeed their company).
Never trust blokes who try and ban the c-word from conversation because their bird doesn't like it (just say it more).
Never trust people who "don't like to lose control".
Finally and most importantly, never, ever trust people who don't drink beer, unless they have a very good excuse - and for the avoidance of doubt, being an uptight, miserable sod is not a very good excuse.
Stonch lives in London, where he runs a pub.
7 comments:
Hi Stonch,
Looking forward to your writeup on this. Out of curiousity, is this one of the better fests? Or, where would this place in a top five list?
It's my local fest, and I quite like it - not as big as London Drinker, not as crowded as Twickenham, nice venue, good food usually (tho' a couple of years back it wasn't so good), and a small foreign bar.
Even being loyal, I wouldn't put it my top 5, but I do enjoy it (hoping to go tomorrow after missing 07), and have a lot of fond memories of some daft sessions with mates.
I bet there is no lavenda growing on Lavenda Hill but its a fantastic name anyway.
This year is the first time since 1993 that I will have missed the Battersea Beer Festival which I think it's the best one run by local CAMRA in London. Hopefully I will be back in 2009!
Thanks Sid and Tom. Sounds like a spring trip may be in order!
There may be 100 beers on the list, but only a small percentage of those will be on at any time. IMO it's one of those festivals where they have such a high opinion of themselves that they feel it necessary to continuously take off and put on the beers rather than simply putting them on when they're ready and then selling it all.
First of all, as a first-time poster, just let me say how much I've enjoyed reading the Blog since I discovered it late last year.
I went to the Festival on friday afternoon as its one I always
enjoy and its obviously been a success again this year. However, picking up on Gazza's point, putting everything on at the start, when combined with the obvious popularity of the festival, brought its own problems on Friday as past about 6pm the choice of beers was severely curtailed - not much more than a number of milds, Youngs, Bombardier and Deuchars IPA.
This was particularly disappointing as this was exactly the time that the Festival began to be populated by a younger Friday-night crowd (including many women), some of whom will no doubt have been attending their first festival and who would've had every right to feel rather short-changed having queued up and handed over there entrance fee only to find not much more on offer than they'd find at anu hafl-decent local - not a great result for the future of real ale.
Of course I appreciate leaving it 'til late is always an occupational hazard for the festival goer but it was rather disappointing that even as I left long queues were still waiting to get in yet I wasn't conscious of any effort on the part of the organisers to warn people that very few beers were actually left (assuming of course that they weren't just waiting my departure to roll-out barrels of rare delights !).
I know its always difficult to exactly anticipate demand over three days but I hope that next year the organisers reflect on the popularity of this year's event and try and ensure that Friday Night is the showcase session it should be.
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