29th September 2008
A Beer Fest
Last weekend was devoted to beer in all its guises at the inaugural beer exposed show at Islington's Business Design Centre.It's a great space for such an event with it's domed translucent roof far above the ground, it feels big and airy and conducive to supping a quiet drink. The event was organised to widen the appeal of proper beer - a sort of corrective to the ubiquity of ice cold lager. With around 85 different beers and brewers they certainly had the numbers on their side. They came from everywhere - west country, Wales, Scotland were locals compared to Czech, Cuban, Belgian and French offerings. And of course a beer festival cannot be a beer festival without an Australian offering - in this case the enjoyable Coopers Sparkling, long one of my own favourites.
I confess I am not the biggest fan of bitter but my man is a serious fiend for cask ale so we were a bit of an odd couple at the start. We arrived about half an hour into the evening session and the hall was not very busy, just a low hum of interested chatter and lots of stalls serving a myriad of beers. We collected a glass then started out round some of the stalls. Not knowing most of them I thought it wise to sample a few sips - and some of them I really enjoyed.
I liked the offerings from Brew Dog - a kind of punk upstart that makes good beer with anarchic packaging. Bakalar was a slightly sweeter version of Budvar - another Czech offering - brewed in a massive brewery underwritten by Russian money. The beers we both liked the most were from Country Life in Devon, who produce 15,000 pints a week. I'd never heard of them - and neither had my beer loving boy. So, a definite result.
And you can buy it in Aldi.
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