Once again the gang of chimps known as the nofear massive headed on down on Friday the 20th of January to this year's edition of the Cambridge Winter Ale Festival.
Filing in with the crowds soon after 5.30 we paid our entrance fees and, souvenir tankards in hand, grabbed the first beer we came across, then grabbed some seats.
The initial half to grace my glass was called "Whot’s Occuring" by the brewery at Great Oakley, it was not my favourite style of beer, being a bit light and a tiny bit hoppy for me. On another note I suspect that I am mildly allergic to hops and do prefer beer that is treated with other flavour enhancers. A nice mild or dark beer is my usual choice. So I gave this one 6 out of 10 as it seemed quite clean tasting.
What I was really after next was a Wenslas Winter Warmer by Elgood’s, I had fond memories of this from last year and was keen to repeat the experience. Once again though the beers were difficult to find, and only some were on during each night, I implore CAMRA to try and print out at least which stall the beer in question is located at on the programme. It is quite disheartening staggering about amongst the throng, trying to find a beer which, when you do find the correct stall for it, turns out not to be on sale that evening.
So I ended up with a Winter Warmer, but it was the wrong one! This was by the Fenland brewery from Chatteris. It was only a 5.5% one but, it was nice 9 out of 10! It had an almost liquorishy-chocolatey taste with nice dark malt. Being 2% less than the Elgood variant I thought that it was also a wiser choice as by this stage some of my friends were onto their 3rd half.
Less than an hour had passed by this stage and the hall at the University Sports and Social Club was getting up to capacity. We all elected to drink one of the strongest ales available for this festival, Burton Bridge – Thomas Sykes, a very healthy 10% drink. What could I say about this one? For starters it was dangerously drinkable, some may say a bit of a girls ale for the drinkability, I however am not one for challenging beers. If it has good taste and doesn’t make me shudder to drink it then so much the better. So I had two of these, one after the other, and gave it 8 out of 10. Would have got more but I did wonder if the brewer had dumped a load of honey into it. We even tried to pass it off as mead to a succubus who was in the area, but she soon realised that it was ale. Did not stop her finishing it off though – very high-octane stuff!
The toilets were in a good state. The CAMRA people must put so much effort into looking after the venues that take on. Back up top the next pot luck ale was a Rampant Gryphon, 6.2% and a proper Yorkshire bitter. Not for me though, way too bitter, 4/10.
By now I was really quite sozzled and thought that curbing my intake at this point would mean a low-maintenance hangover the next day. To avoid too much mixing I returned to the Fenland Winter-Warmer once more and supped it with pleasure. I might have had another half after this too, but I have to say that my hand-written notes are so illegible that this entry could have just been random drunken scribbling. Closer inspection of the names of beers that were available do indicate that there was indeed a Damson Stout for sale, however I cannot remember enough about this one to warrant a score!
Overall this was another atmospheric festival that was not too busy this year thanks to careful management from the Cambridge CAMRA team. See you next year!
The highlight of the evening was running, blind drunk, with pint glass, from the venue to the railway station. I don't think I've run that far that quickly since school.
I concur on the issues locating the beer. It is surprisingly difficult to try and work out what is where when the place gets really crowded.