Author: Chris

Saturday was our last day in England and we finished up strong by visiting a couple of breweries in the north London suburbs and returning to GBBF for its final session.

When we were in London in December, I tried a Colorado IPA from Red Squirrel Brewery.  I thought it absolutely brilliant and knew I wanted to visit the brewery.

Luckily, we had a connection through our friend Paul, the cellarman at the Old Fountain. Paul was able to grease the wheel and set up the brewery visit. So Saturday morning, we met Paul at track 10 (not 9 3/4) at King’s Cross Station for the half hour ride to Hertford.

Located in an industrial park near the Hertford North rail station, Red Squirrel is a 10 barrel brewery producing a dozen or so real ales. Unfortunately, due to the ‘hop issue’, my beloved Colorado IPA was no longer in production.

Gary Hayward, the owner, is amazingly a one-man operation, handling every task you can imagine. Brewing, washing casks, distribution, sales, accounts receivable, accounts payable… he does it all.

The beer we got to try is the replacement for Colorado IPA… Springfield IPA. While not as hoppy as its west coast-style brethren, it still will raise the eyebrows of any hophead out there. We want to thank Gary for taking a few minutes out of his busy day to spend time with us.

As our luck would have it, there was also a another brewery in Hertford (well, there are actually two other breweries, but only one is open to the public) to visit before we headed back to London. The Old Cross Tavern, located in the city center, not only has an impressive collection of hand pumps, but also a small brewery located in the former kitchen.

Their beer that they were pulling was Laugh and Titter, a very nice Bitter. It makes sense that it was a Bitter since that it is what Laugh and Titter is slang for.

Even more impressive was their collection of vintage bottled beer. There was several hundred bottles including vintage Thomas Hardy from the 1970s and a bottle of Bass Ale from 1869! I guess I should stress that these were full bottles of beer, not empties.

It was time to return to London and after parting with Paul, we headed over to Earl’s Court and the the last session of the festival.

Call us GBBF rookies which is apropos because we are. And we pulled off a really, really, really BIG rookie maneuver.

Over half the reason for going to the trade session is so you can try the Champion Beer before the masses are let in the venue. This year the winner was Alton’s Pride from Triple fff Brewery. During the trade session, despite knowing that we were supposed to try the Champion, I never bothered finding out who had won.

We doubled our mistake by not trying it on Thursday when we were volunteering. The beer was only in the next section over, B6.

Well, Saturday, was going to be the day we tried it. We met a friend – more about that in a second – and then bee lined for section B6. It was out but we were told that it would be back on in an hour and a half – 5pm. We returned dutifully at 4:56pm and were told that is was gone for good. Lesson learned.

So the friend we met is JJ, formerly known as The Thirsty Hopster and a fellow Bay Area Beer Blogger.  JJ’s claim to fame, in reference to us, is that in our 10 years of travel to Europe she is the first person that we know from the States who we have met up with over there. Congrats JJ! Your plaque is in the mail.

By 6pm, the festival was winding down but we wanted to stay the last hour to get video of the people streaming out. But an odd thing happened… as more and more casks ran dry, people started leaving on their own volition and by closing time, 7pm, the convention hall was pretty empty.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention our fussball friends…  unfortunately, we don’t remember their names (If by chance you guys are reading this, send us an e-mail). We were wondering around the hall in the last hour and walked by one of the fussball tables scattered around the venue. Three guys were looking for a fourth and I got asked to join a game. So, we played a game of fussball (no spinning) and then talked with them for about an forty five minutes. Truly one of our greatest pleasures of going to Europe: good beer and good conversation. Thanks.

Thursday was our day volunteering at the Great British Beer Festival. Pulling pints was something we looked forward to – we were just worried about the ‘money issue’.

At GBBF, the volunteers also take the money. So, combine a strange currency with varying prices and no cash register – just a till – and you get a bit of anxiety. Could we do this?

We duly showed up at Earl’s Court staffing office at the requested hour, 10am. Well actually, we were there a bit early. Asked what we wanted for a job assignment, we passed on steward, and whatever other job there was and said we wanted to pour beer. We were assigned to area B5, Mid West England. If you are unfamiliar with this region of England as we are, it includes the counties of Staffordshire, Worcestershire Shropshire and Herefordshire.  To throw out some brewery names… Burton Bridge, Enville, Hanby, Hobsons, Old Cottage, White Shield…

After donning our bright yellow vests – forklifts were still flying around the convention center floor – we headed  downstairs to B5 to meet Zippy, our bar manager.  After explaining to us the evacuation route, he quickly went down the line and gave a brief description of the 20-odd beers that we would be pouring: milds, bitters, best bitters, porters and stouts.

Then we spent almost two hours sitting around reading the tabloids because the festival didn’t open until noon. We also had a chance to meet our fellow staff and we particularly enjoyed chatting with Les and Des.

Noon finally arrived but because we were situated in the back part of the hall, it would take a few moments for the crowd to sift back towards us. However, we were guaranteed a busy day because the Champion Beer of the festival, Alton’s Pride from Triple FFF was in B6, the section right next to us. We were certainly going to get some overflow.

I pulled my first pint about quarter past the hour and we were off and running. I think it was Slater’s Top Totty.

The crowd waxed and waned over the afternoon sometimes being several deep at the bar. Part of the time, this was due to the English inability to step away from the bar after getting their pints. At other times, it would be a ghost town in front of us.

The highlight beer in our section might have been the Ginger Ale from Enville which really did taste like ginger ale. Unfortunately, it will also the hardest beer to pull as it was very lively and foamed easily.

Taking money wasn’t too hard considering I hadn’t been in a job where I took money since I was in my teens. Once I could get a system down in my head, it went smoothly most of the time. I will admit, I messed up on the money once and the older gentleman was nice enough to help me out.

The most difficult situation was when some punter came up with five of his mates and he was buying. All six would get different beers and different sizes and you would have to keep a running total in your head.

And I do need to mention that we were able to drink beer on our shift. On our break and after our shift, we were able to enjoy free pints in the staff bar. And we were able to sample the beers we were pouring.

Zippy in his opening talk told us that the main thing was for us to have fun. And it was fun… it was great… when we make it back to GBBF, we will do it again. For all of our hard work, we received not only fond memories, but also a free session and discounted beer.

We finished up the day at our second favorite pub in London the Wenlock Arms meeting Paul and Eilís for quiz night. Run by Eddie the – now not so – Fat Controller, it is a lot of fun and is something that we would recommend. The questions are a lot harder then quiz in the States… well, at least in our neck of the woods.  We came in sixth out of 13 teams.

With the guided Real Ale Walk with Lynne and Ian under our belts, the next day we set out on a self-guided walk. Armed with the a set of instructions provided by Ian, the eight mile loop would take us to the town of Holford and the Plough Inn.

Admittedly, I was a bit worried that we would take a wrong turn and end up in Cardiff, but the feeling more had to do with our ability to follow the instructions, not the quality of the directions.  The walk instructions were very specific, such as advising to turn right just after a “grassy clearing with a solitary tree”.  Lo and behold, we did in fact come across a clearing and turned dutifully to the right hand trail.

The walk took us through farmer’s fields, woodland, and finally along a trail astride to a meandering brook that lead us to the town of Holford.

After a little over four miles, we arrived at the Plough Inn ready for some pints and food. The pub had 3 real ales; two of which I had not tried yet. My favorite was the Tawny Bitter from Cotleigh, a Somerset brewery.

The publican was very friendly and when he saw me take the picture of the tap handles, he said he had something to give me to better remember my visit. He started digging in a bag – I thought he was trying to find me some bar mats – but he pulled out this nice Cotleigh bar towel and handed it to me.  It was a nice gesture and while we find friendly publicans most of the time, they are not always willing to give up their beer stuff.

They also had a real cider. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention cider, as Somerset is the home to English cider. The real ale pubs will have a ‘proper’ cider on and in the case of the Plough Inn, it was the cider from Cheddar Valley. It looked like orange soda, but the flavor was crisp and refreshing. If you make it to Somerset, you need to give proper cider a try.

Filled with a few pints and some food, it was time to head back to Nether Stowey. Our return journey took us through moorland similar to what we hiked the previous day and in no time we were back at the Old Cider House.

I was pleased. We finally got some exercise on a trip – two eight mile walks was just what the doctor ordered. But moreover, Real Ale Walks was everything I imagined it would be. Great walks, great beer, and great people.