Great British Beer Festival
It is the GBBF this week in London but I'm not going. I've been six times now but it gets incredibly busy and is in London. Meh. 400+ beers is great to choose from but I reckon that a regular beer festival with 100+ beers is enough choice.
Don't get me wrong - its a spectacular event & worth going once for the day out. However my work used to pay for me to go for corporate hospitality, then I'd use the free beer tokens the following day with my friends to have a free drink or twenty.
I'm writing this as the message board has been dead for a few weeks due to a technical glitch & I wanted to get the ball rolling again.
How many beers are needed at a beer festival before the amount of choice becomes irrelevant? I reckon 8 friends drinking 18 half pints & sharing, cover 144 different beers. The beers being tried twice (accidentally or because they were so good) and some beers not being tried on purpose (widely available or well known) roughly balance.
Does anyone else bother thinking of the maths involved?
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Yes.
I've thought about it often. I reckon that more is better though. For a start, you can go to multiple sessions, with a different style agenda each time - just barley wines, for example. Or you can focus on breweries you almost never see anywhere else. Or, you can just let attrition sort it out for you, and listen to what others are saying is amazing, and just try those. Either way, I'm jealous that you guys in the UK and US have such awesome beer festivals.
Here's ours: http://www.brewnz.co.nz/ - There will be maybe 5-10 beers I've never tried before. And maybe 60 beers in total. I've been to pub-based weekend festivals in the UK with more beers! ;)
I was hoping you'd have gone Dave, so I could live vicariously through you. ;)
barley wines
If I was drinking barley wines then a choice of about 8 would sort me out for an early night!
I've reported on the GBBF before on www.dmonbeer.co.uk if you want to see the pictures & story.
Dave
UK
I was there
I haven't been on CBR for a while, no podcast listening over the summer (for no particular reason)
But I was at GBBF. Choice is good. I tried an awful lot of beers and a lot of good ones too :)
Lost Abbey Angels Share on cask was worth the trip on it's own. Also a barrel aged Imperial Porter, Tzarina Ezra (straight from the barrel) from the great new Dutch brewer De Molen.