Today’s blog post is a guest post from chrisp on TrustedPlaces but also of Cheese and Biscuits, one of our favourite London review blogs. He was at Beer Exposed at Islington’s Business Design Centre last weekend. Over to chrisp.

Beer Exposed is a drinks festival billed as a different approach to beer and beer tasting and organised by an old acquaintance of mine, Des Mulcahy, whom I first met backpacking in Hong Kong all the way back in 2001. He and his colleague Matt Roclawski have scoured Europe and the world for the finest small producers and microbrewers and invited them all to set up shop in London’s Business Design Centre to show us ignorant Londoners how beer is supposed to taste.

The contrast with the awful, cynical Toast Festival in Olympia the previous night couldn’t have been more stark. On the way into Beer Exposed you are handed a tasting glass, which you use to get free (and often quite generous) samples from all the stalls in the festival. You pay extra for nothing, unless you are so taken with a particular brew you wish to purchase a crate or two to take home. And the range and quality of the drinks on offer at Beer Exposed are so high, and the passion and knowledge of the producers so infectious, that I’m willing to bet that happened quite often during the course of the weekend.

Organised throughout the day were talks and presentations from beer experts on a variety of subjects. We tagged along with a talk about the way hops are used in beers in the UK and abroad. It seems the story of artisan beer has parallels with that of old world and new world wines - namely that Europe started them off, the US took our processes and combined them with their superior raw ingredients, and now we’re learning off the Americans and upping our game too. We learned about the International Bitterness Units scale and how different beers use the hops to different effects, balancing them either with a greater alcohol content (the sweet alcohol balances out the bitter hops) or by using a blend of different hops for a more complex taste. It was fascinating stuff.

It’s all too easy for these festivals to turn into a corporate brewery trade fair, and the scale of the achievement of Des and Matt in resisting the pressure and money from the big boys and instead creating a gathering of unique, characterful producers is extraordinary. I’m sure that everyone that took the time to visit Beer Exposed has found a new favourite beer - I found about ten, special mentions going to Thornbridge brewery and the porter from Meantime. And if you didn’t manage to make it this year, then keep an eye open for next. It’ll be a sell-out, in a good way.

Thanks chrisp! Now back to you. Where do you go for beer? Where’s good for real ale? Popular choices at TrustedPlaces are The Churchill Arms in Notting Hill, The Red Lion & Sun in Highgate, The Fox & Hounds in Battersea, The Union Rooms in Newcastle and The Counting House in Glasgow.

Were you at Beer Exposed? What did you think? Comment and let us know. Where do you go for real ale? Want to be a guest blogger? We want to speak to you. Email niamh@trustedplaces.com

Technorati Tags: beer exposed, festival, business design centre, islington, beer, TrustedPlaces

Photo courtesy of tikichris, all rights reserved.