A Modern Description of Real Ale Festivals

There are countless Real Ale festivals throughout the UK at various times of the year forming social events at which socially awkward Real Ale drinkers can theoretically meet, talk, discuss beard cultivation, compete to see who has the largest beer gut and - of course - imbibe vast quantities of their beloved beer. In reality what happens at the festivals is that fat bellied beer geeks come, feel alienated as they are too socially inept to talk to one another, and proceed to use the beer program list as a menu for ticking from top to bottom in half pint measures.

Festivals can range from fairly small events hosted by pubs and villages to freak show gatherings attended by hundreds of thousands of people and which may feature 500+ Real Ales - a common feature of these are tickers who are out to drink a half pint of every beer on offer. Usually around 20% of all beers listed in the festival programme will be unavailable during the event as the people responsible for their production have been incapacitated during magical battles with other wizards, or are far too engrossed in a game of Dungeons and Dragons to get around to making their pong.

Many Real Ale festivals are now hosted indoors or in marquees. Many of these will be fully air conditioned, making such venues suitable even for those who do not enjoy the aroma of several hundred large, sweaty men with damp beards combined with the fruity tang of three-day-old spilt beer and vomit.

Survival Tips - Beer Festivals

• Beer festivals will allow you to taste beers before purchase. Towards the end of the evening, when the staff have had a few themselves, they will become careless about precisely which quantity of beer constitutes a taste and will frequently splash a good third of a pint into your glass. Do this a few times and you can easily manage three free pints.
• No matter how intoxicated you become, do not attempt to get a root. You will not like what you wake up with the following morning.
• Should you find you have a hangover the next day, a hair-of-the-dog remedy can be obtained freely. Simply turn up at the festival even if it's 7am. They will usually require casual labourers to help clear up after the previous night's revelry and will pay you in beer - being the confirmed Real Ale drinkers that they are, the organizers will recognize your need for a beer-based breakfast, allowing you at least one pint before you start working.

If you've ever attended performing arts festivals such as Glastonbury, you may have felt put off from further festival attendance due to the lack of decent food - ie; meat - available at such events, where foodstalls tend to cater to hippies and other types of weirdo vegetarian.
With regards to Beer Festivals, never fear: Scratchings, Hamburgers, hot-dogs and hog roasts will all be available at a Real Ale festival. Be sure to have at least one pint of the strongest Real Ale at the festival after eating, as the high alcohol content will help to neutralise any salmonella or e-coli bacteria picked up from the meat which is likely to have been insufficiently barbecued. BBQ's are normally conducted via the antiquated charcoal method as gas BBQ's are considered not to be 'proper'. Most festivals will also have at least one stall specialising in extra-strong varieties of cheese such as Herefordshire Brown Cheddar, a traditional cheese made famous during WW1 when the Herefordshire Regiment used it as a nerve agent, bombarding the German trenches with it at Ypres.

All Real Ale festivals take very great care to discourage those who attend from driving home after consuming alcohol. A common measure is to display one or more real cars at the entrance to the event that have been involved in an accident that killed their drunken driver, the cars usually being supplied rather oddly by the Fire Brigade rather than by the Police or a car recovery garage. It used to be common to place a life-like dummy, modified to resemble a mangled corpse, inside the car as a further incentive to use public transport; however, following complaints at many festivals that the dummy was frightening, this is usually avoided which somewhat detracts from the whole point of the exercise. Extremely intoxicated drinkers can be seen attempting to get into and start the wrecked cars at the end of each night during which the festival is held before they are helpfully steered in the direction of their own cars by security.

That leads us to the final concern. After attending a beer festival you may feel that you have enjoyed yourself and feel that joining some kind of club or association might be a good idea. Don't do it. Once you have signed up to CAMRA they will send you information about how to grow a beer belly, where to buy sandals and which supermarket has the best plastic bags. Start down that path and its a short stroll to Morris dancing and pickled eggs. Beware. Tip - these symptoms may be remedies by drinking what you will now refer to as 'chemical fizz'. Five gulps of cooking lager will have you seeing straight again.

SpecTAPular

While I have no intention of attending this event at all, I feel that as a service to others I should remark that the the Local Taphouse chain of pubs is having their SpecTAPular beer festival in a week or so time. Available at prices which UK drinkers would flatly refuse to pay are the following beers (available in proper real keg format);

* Original Fassbier - Kellerbier matured on roasted oak chips (Last Drop, WA, 4.6%)
* Cucumber Sandwich - Summer Ale (Mountain Goat, VIC, 4.2%)
* kb - Kriek Berliner Weisse served through morello cherries (Wig & Pen, ACT, 4.3%)
* Organic Blueberry Hefeweizen (Otway Estate, VIC, 5%)
* Belgian Raspberry Wit (Kooinda, VIC, 5.5%)
* Anzac Bickies - Oats, coconut and vanilla ale (Burleigh Brewing, QLD, 5%)
* Red Relief (Stone & Wood, NSW, 4.7%)
* Cherry Bomb - Cherry and coconut porter (True South, VIC, 5%)
* Quince Ale (Lobethal and Brew Boys Collaboration, SA, 5.6%)
* Zephyr - Double White Ale (Doctors Orders Brewing, NSW, 5.6%)
* Chocolate Chilli Porter (Hunter, NSW, 5.8%)
* 2 Hills Maibock (Collaboration between Hargreaves Hill and Red Hill Breweries, VIC, 6.8%)
* Wee Heavy (4 Pines, 7.8%)
* Rye IPA (Mash, WA)
* Karma Citra - Black IPA showcasing the Citra hop (Feral, WA, 5.9%)
* Lemon Myrtle IPA (Jamieson, VIC, 7%)
* The Secret Romance of Herman van Rompuy and Cherry Poppens - Belgian style Flanders red (Moondog, VIC, 7.3%)
* The Empress - Imperial Mocha Porter (Holgate, VIC, 10%)
* Big Red Rocket - Imperial Red Ale (Bridge Road, VIC, 9%)
* Imperious - Imperial Belgian Blond Ale (Murrays, NSW, 11%)
Enjoy :)

Special Beer Shipment for Nth Queensland

Recently PIUTW highlighted the devastation caused to Queensland by flooding. Of concern was that beer supplies to far north Queensland would be cut off which would ultimately lead to riots. Anyway the worst has happened and beer supplies are critically short. To meet demand, XXXX has sent a special container shipment of 50000 cases or some 500000 liters of beer north to plug the shortfall. With rail and overland infrastructure cut off due to flooding, transport via sea is the only option which remains.

Other restaurants including McDonald's have had to restrict their menu's as produce is simply not available due to the impact of the floods. McDonald's have reportedly flown in a plane full of lettuce so their reduced offerings will still meet nutritional standards. This air shipment of a low value item of lettuce is also reported to have cost over $50000.

You can read a serious account of these shortages here.

Redoak

I have blogged previously about the Redoak boutique brewery. Sure it's overpriced but the beer here is pretty good. I have never had a dodgy beer here and it really is something special compared to even the best that proper real keg has to offer (generally all beers here are proper real - although occasionally they have a pump on, maybe one of only two or three hand pumps in Sydney).

Anyhow I was in there chatting to the bar dude on Friday night sipping their excellent Bitter (3.5% abv) when he informed me of their recent success at the World Beer Awards that were held in London last July. After being told by numerous anonymous assholes in the comments section of this blog and various others that "Australian's don't know about ale" etc I find it quite humorous that Redoak Bitter took out the award for Bitter category ahead of every brown 4% beer that the UK can produce. Hear that, Australians beat the Brits at their own game.

Over the weekend I also caught Oz and Hugh - Raise the Bar. Episode three was very interesting, especially the beer festival in Manchester. Now anybody who denies the CAMRA stereotype needs to watch this episode. Beards, bellies and weirdo's holding plastics bags are pictured. Hugh Dennis even makes a comment that he feels out of place without a beard and a plastic bag. There is no point in denying the facts here and anyone who tries to argue to the contrary obviously falls into the stereotype. And to top it all off there is a steam train at the end, the crowning jewel in the ticker train watching stereotype. Props to Oz and Hugh for going on the lash with a bunch of female students from Leeds, but what was the go with the place adding essences to beer? Overall that segment along with comments from several drinkers along the way throughout the series confirmed to me that the average UK enthusiast doesn't know shit about beer.

CAMRA Beer Festivals - A Pictorial Expose

Floods Lead to Beer Shortage

Unless you have been living with your head in the sand, or in an insular self absorbed country, you would be well aware that the state of QLD is a natural disaster area with large parts of the capital Brisbane underwater due to flooding. Some 90000 homes have been lost and over 100 people dead or feared missing. I'd like to bring your attention to this article which not only points out the obvious, but also highlights a rather serious issue - Beer shortage.

This is pretty serious. The XXXX brewery in Milton was flooded yesterday and production was forced to stop. The banana benders in far north Queensland drink more beer per capita than anywhere else on the planet, and now they are going to be faced with the worst situation of all - Pubs with no beer. I'm predicting riots and civil unrest as QLD moved forward into the cleanup period.

So you are probably sitting there in the UK or the US thinking, so what a few less gigalitres of XXXX in the world is probably a good thing. Well not really, consider how it would be if your backyard turned into a swamp? So what can YOU do? Head over to the relief fund at Aussiehomebrewer.com and make a donation and help support those affected, buy them a beer.

Sierra Nevada legitimately coming to Australia

Hello esteemed readers and wall pissers, welcome to 2011. Exciting news for those down under. Sierra Nevada, the iconic brewery which is often stated to have started the craft beer revolution will now be legitimately imported by Phoenix Beers via refrigerated container.

Previously "grey imports" of the signature Pale Ale (SNPA for those with the lingo) have been smuggled in through Europe with a product landing in Australia that was well past its best and generally in pretty shit condition. This dodgy conduct with grey imports has caused a bit of a stir with the US based brewers over the past 12 months. I have not commented on the issue here at PIUTW as I couldn't be bothered. Anyhow Phoenix Beer has stepped up and will have SN beers available through it's online International Beer Shop.

With it’s elevated status in contemporary beer culture, there is great demand in Australia for Sierra Nevada products hence the 'healthy' grey market which has cropped up. Legit imported Sierra Nevada will be the freshest available and will note Phoenix as the importer on the label. Grey or dodgy imports will have other importers on the label and other suspicious acts such as the best before dates removed.

While this may not be of interest to a number of US and UK based readers it's important for us down under as our geographical isolation often leaves us with only our local craft beer scene when it comes to quality. To be honest our local craft beers are good but are way overpriced due to our heft excise laws.

BTW SNPA will be retailing for $25 a six pack, so do the maths and work out how much mark up is on the beer. I recall paying $8 for a six pack when in New York in 2009.

For a more comprehensive and serious account of this exciting news, pop over and visit the good folk at Australian Brews News who I blatently stole this story from.

Worlds Most Expensive Beer

I thought BrewDogs high alcohol special releases were expensive, but Nail Brewing Antarctic Nail Ale takes the cake at A$1850 a bottle. This premium for a single bottle (of a limited release of 30) shows that as much as Caroline Nodder want's to dispute it, there is a market for niche beers catering specifically to beer geeks. Proceeds from the sale of Antarctic Nail Ale will be going to support the pseudo-terrorist anti-whaling campaign Sea Shepherd.

Nail Brewing's owner/brewer John Stallwood claims that the strictly limited-edition beer is the world's purest, having been made with water melted from a block of Antarctic ice. The ice was collected from a large Antarctic iceberg by Stallwood's brother-in-law, Kevin McGinty, who is a terrorist member of Sea Shepherd's crew. Back in port in Hobart, the ice was melted then delivered to Stallwood in Perth, where he produced a 20-litre batch of his signature Nail Ale, using a pilot brewery at Edith Cowan University.

I personally don't have an appetite for expensive geek only beer, however I wonder how much this version of Nail Ale differs from the original brewery sourced water version?

The SMH ran a story on the beer yesterday if you can be bothered to read anything that Willie Simpson has to say..

Oprah gets into the VB

Oprah seems to be having a nice time down here in Australia. Besides forcing her US based opinions regarding golliwogs on our more tolerant nature, she has also been sampling some of Australia's laid back lifestyle including the attendance of a bogan BBQ.
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"But Winfrey fitted right in, noshing on tabouleh, chicken kebabs and salads - all washed down with a can of VB"
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Doesn't sound very Aussie to me. Where are the sausages, steak and proper real keg? To be fair the BBQ is a shining example of our of some of our ethnically diverse community, but VB? Really Oprah WTF.

Low Carb

It seems that Australian's or well the great unwashed amongst us, have fallen victims to the clever "low carb" marketing used by most Australian brewing companies. A recent article regarding a survey found that;

Almost three-quarters (71 per cent) of low-carb beer drinkers who responded to a VicHealth poll said it was a healthy alternative to full-strength beer.

A majority (59 per cent) said it was healthier than mid-strength while more (38 per cent) thought it was healthier than lower-alcohol light beer compared with those who knew it was not (36 per cent).

Hmm, common sense tells us that beer is calorie laden due to alcohol, not sugaz. But being beer geeks we knew that didn't we.

I must confess that the low carb marketing is good for one thing, and that's getting girls drinking beer, which means more girls in beer drinking venues. As for 'Pure Blonde" as in the image above. Well I'm not that fussed. I prefer my blondes on their backs with their legs open.

Brew Masters

I have been watching and enjoying the new Discovery Channel documentary series Brew Masters starring Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head Craftbrewery in Delaware, US. Tonight is the screening of the last episode in the series, and previous episodes have covered collaboration beers with Sony for Bitches Brew and Epic Brewing from NZ with Portamarillo which is a beer spiced with Tamarillo fruit. My favourite episode is the Cicha episode where they make a corn beer which is mashed by chewing on the grains so the amylase protein in the brewers saliva converts the corn starch to fermentable sugars. Besides these interesting brews the series highlights overall Dogfish Head production from issues with the bottling line to the operation at the Rehoboth Beach brewpub. Snippets of the series is available from Discovery Channel website, and through other various means such as *cough*channel BT*cough*.

I had heard of Sam and Brian's hip hop act the 'Pain Releivaz' before, but the Bitches Brew episode was the first time I had heard them in action. Enjoy.
BTW - Dogfish Head use proper real keg as there preferred packaging. If this offends, then maybe this isn't the documentary for you.

Beer Fridge

I have a new beer fridge. Its not the greatest piece of kit in the world, but it does the job and the price was right. The GE 470 is of 80's vintage and was sourced through my local Freecycle group. Currently it holds a 19L keg of Amarillo Pale Ale which I brewed a couple of weeks ago. It also has a fermenter of an American Pale Ale which I brewed last week. This is cold conditioning so it drops bright before I chuck it in a keg.
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A beer fridge is every Australian man's birthright. Often of generation gap older than its new eco-friendly cousin in the kitchen, it sits in the laundry or garage with the sole purpose of keeping a mans beer cold. Mine will also house hops in its generous freezer section and yeast samples in the door, but the point is that its sole purpose is beer related.
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I am willing to overlook its power consumption for the simple fact that my beer will be cold and I'll have proper real keg on demand whenever I so choose.
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I read a professional (aka newspaper columnists blog) last week which posed the question how much beer should a beer fridge hold? The journalist response was surprising and made me question his sexuality;
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"The obvious answer is that it should be full to pussy's bow with beer, but I do not know that this is in fact true. My own beer fridge is about half full at the moment. Stocked with the remnants of our Halloween party. Four Kirins, three Steinlagers, two Heinekens, five sundry stubbies from the most excellent brewery of Mr. James Squire, and a couple of Cascade lights which somehow found their way in when my guard was down."
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Besides the fact that its full of exotic tasteless Asian, Kiwi and Euro lagers, there is one fundamental problem. It is not being used to its full potential. Maybe he should trade for a smaller fridge? Anyway the article dribbles on for a bit and the Journalist tries to justify his gayness, and then pretty much comes out of the closet with his final line.
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"I think then the rule of thumb must be, as in all things, that modest stillness and humility should be our watchword. A half-full beer fridge gives the impression that a good time has been had, and could yet be had again, but that one need not immediately launch oneself into a savage assault on the beer supplies, lending a considered and civilised repose to the contemplation of which bottle might come out next.
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For me, I think, another Kirin might be in order."
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Anyhow, for now I'll just be happy knowing that I have plenty of good quality piss on hand when ever I feel like it. You can read the homosexual ravings of the Journo here if you so wish.

Gemma loves a pint

Gemma Atkinson of Hollyoaks fame showing a bit of cleavage and enjoying some proper real nitro keg. What is not to love??

I just hope that Gemma doesn't live by the motto, once you have had black, you never go back!

CAMRA AGM

Ever wondered what goes on at the CAMRA AGM? Is there a dress code? Is there a secret handshake?
Every April, members of the secret CAMRA caucus/cabal get together at Stonehenge and walk around nude saying prayers to their pagen gods and conspire how they can inflict their medieval beliefs upon the great unwashed.
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I'm willing to bet that the items that will reside high on the agenda in April 2010 will be cask breathers, extraneous carbon dioxide, a lively debate on whether or not the Euston Tap is following CAMRA's outdated doctrines and is worthy of inclusion in the Good Beer Guide, and whether all lager drinkers should be referred to as Nazi's as traditionally Germans drink bottom fermented beer.

Happy Birthday Dredgie

Just a quick happy birthday shout out to Mark Dredge from Pencil and Spoon who turned 26 today. Piss It Up The Wall expects big things for the next 12 months.

All the best.

Skittles

Skittles is a weird game that was once played in pubs around England. Now its a past time enjoyed by old guys at CAMRA beer festivals. Former PIUTW contributor Pigman recently went to the UK and sent me this picture of the guy who organises the Skittles at the Ealing Beer Festival. Here Pigman is pictured with the weird beard. This guy doesn't believe in modern technologies such as razors, soap, extraneous carbon dioxide and refrigeration, but will happily wear a headset to broadcast to the world he enjoys medieval pub games. Nice work champ!

Thanks Pigman for the photo.

Pete Kicks CAMRA in the Nuts

That's correct, The greatest beer blogger of all time and Dungeons and Dragons Guild dungeon master Pete Brown has once again stated the obvious about CAMRA and caused controversy. Not that CAMRA doesn't deserve a swift kick in the nuts from time to time, but hey remember that The Beer Diary did it first.

I still don't get the issue with simple pleasures such as proper real keg. Why shouldn't the consumer have the right to drink beer that has not been tainted with the foul putrid air that lives in Pub cellars. Really, I want someone to put a petri dish down there and try and culture what nasties inhabit these areas. They are obviously not fit for food preparation or consumption. Like if I put a sandwich down there and served it 48 hours later it would probably make someone ill. But apparently because pubs have been around since before refrigeration, bottled carbon dioxide and god forbid cask breathers, its acceptable. The devices I listed earlier are designed to make sure beer is optimal at point of sale, but the chat to any CAMRA member and fresh, cold beer is actually tainted? I don't get it, but then I can walk out of building, across the road and have a really top Schooner of James Squire Porter in proper real keg form anytime I so choose to.

You can read about Pete Browns thoughts here.

BeerTickers - Beyond The Ale

Tim recently gave me a copy of the documentary "BEERTICKERS - beyond the ale" which was sent to him courtesy of Phil Parkin the creative catalysts behind the venture. Being the lazy fucker that I am, it has sat idle on my coffee table for several weeks - well until last night when I was bored and had given YouPorn a good run for its money. Below is my half arsed attempt of a review.

Ticking - I never really understood tickers. When I lived in London I didn't mind a pint of the old pongy ale, but I worked on the Sarf side of the river at London's biggest lager factory. I always had a fridge full of free piss that I squandered from work.... shhh! please don't tell Mr Busch I stole his beer.

To me tickers where the mob who I encountered most often at CAMRA (vista social club) beer festivals. These are events where basically a whole load of old codgers sit around in a tent drinking halves of warm flat beer and writing notes, or ticking the festival program. I saw it as a futile endeavour, a bit like bodybuilding - there is just no point. How do you appreciate something if all you are doing is having a couple of mouthfuls and then moving onto something else?

Anyhow back to the movie, basically it's about this Northern chap called Phil, who decided that he wanted to make a movie to document some eccentric British behaviour. Phil decides that he wants to explore "Ticking" and inadvertently picks up a bit of a habit after hanging around with the worlds best tickers (including Piss It Up The Wall's own Gazza Prescott who features heavily throughout the film). The ticking leads Phil to an enlightenment which highlights the importance of beer in modern and historical British culture. This includes a guided tour by Pete Brown through the Brewing Museum in Burton, and making a special batch of Jaipur with the Kiwi chap at Thornbridge. Oh and that bruiser chick - (Melissa Cole?) is in it too.

I'll be honest and say that I found parts of the movie slightly repetitive, but I also managed to stay awake for the whole hour or so it runs. Some highlights/odd behaviour include watching desperate weirdo's pour beer from pint glasses into sterilised bottles so they can drink them later and still get the tick, weird old men in general, and Gazza's sidekick Dave (from Steel City Brewing) lose his cool when Phil quiz's him over his ban from the Fat Duck or some other Sheffield pub.

Overall, this docco is worth checking out even if you only have a passing interest in beer and beer culture. I think I have in my possession the only copy in Australia at the moment. I'm not sure if Australian distribution has been organised, but you can order it through the website http://www.beertickersfilm.com.

Avery Outdone By Chinese Lass

King of the stemware Zak Avery has been issued an ultimatum, and in this instance size does count. Will Avery be able to use just a regular pint glass? Will his aromatics be sub-par? Will Avery's olfactory senses be marginalised for the experience? More importantly, will his ability to detect vanilla, citrus and warm vinegar notes be affected? I guess only time will tell.....

Tactical Nuclear Penguin Put To It's death

A picture says a million words.