August is shaping up to be an awesome month beer wise. Here’s why:
1. GBBF
Everyone knows this is coming up. I travel across on Saturday morning to help with the setup and work all week until the following Saturday. I’ll be working on USA cask with BSF (I hope!). Expect tweets along the way as beers arrive and I get to taste my hit list!
2. Three meet the brewer events
Turns out the Cask pub and Kitchen have a meet the brewer event with Doug Odell on the Saturday night (okay 30th July isn’t quite August, ssshhh) and if that isn’t enough, one with the Kernel Brewery on Monday 1st August. We have evenings free until Tuesday; so time to go sample beers that I’ve never tried before. I really enjoyed the Odell beers I tried recently so looking forward to that. I’ve heard loads about Kernel too and until now not got hold of any. Expect blogs on both of these.
Then on the Thursday (yes international #IPAday) there’s a meet the brewer at the White Horse, Parsons Green. The brewery in question - Only Flying Dog! Not only beer tastings, there will also be cheese. It’s a given then that I plan to attend!
3. Week in Manchester
Outside of London, Edinburgh and perhaps Leeds, Manchester seems to have the highest density of pubs in the UK serving new and interesting beers, and plenty of good cask pubs too. I plan to visit Port Street Beer House, the Marble Arch and the Microbar among others. Also when I’m staying in Manchester I’m making a train trip to a certain Headingley beer shop, which I’m very much looking forward to.
4. Beer Tasting
One of Craig’s legendary beer tastings is hopefully happening in Edinburgh on the Friday of my Manchester trip. I must have known as my return journey leaves for Edinburgh at 2pm Friday afternoon ;). May also get to visit what is fast becoming my regular Edinburgh haunt too.
5. Hilden Beer Festival
To round off the month nicely Hilden Brewery has their annual beer festival. Running from the Friday evening through to Sunday early evening the event is set to have over 30 beers, including beers from both Northern Ireland and the Republic, along with select favourites from on “the mainland”. There’s a BBQ all day and bands playing on two different stages. Once the beer list has been released I shall make a separate post, but in the meantime see the website and the flyer below.
Who said you have to go abroad to some exotic location to have an exciting beer summer! If anyone has any suggestions of other places to go/ things to see whilst in any of the fine cities mentioned above then let me know. Hope to see some of you at any or all of these events!
NB Don’t write a blog post whilst cooking dinner or you’ll end up destroying a saucepan when it runs out of water!
Missing Hilden for the second year running :( Next year definitely. Always a great festival.
ReplyDeleteI didn't go last year as I was at Reading festival. I've volunteered to help staff it too, so will see if I'm needed.
ReplyDeleteWill you come to the Belfast beer festival in November?
Haven't missed the last three of those. Don't plan on missing this year's either. Are you involved in the organisation of it at all?
ReplyDelete*gets out list of suggestions*
Yeah I am, though I can't make every meeting due to getting there/back! Last year Adrian sent out the list to email for comments; so hopefully will be the same again this year. In general we are limited to what can be obtained through SIBA with some cider coming via Wetherspoon. We'd love to stock beers from the south but tax issues make it a logistical nightmare. I'll be working there too
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'd say it is. Though Hilden generally have southern beers at their festival so presumably have all the appropriate warehousing licences in place. And I'm sure they owe CAMRA NI a favour or two :P
ReplyDelete