Recently in Cambridge Beer Festival Category

Apparently this was the last year where free entry to CAMRA members would occur. So it was with much sadness that I traipsed my way over to the usual area of Jesus Green last week. I was surprised initially because there was no sign of the marquees and 8ft high metal enclosure. Then, peering through the swirling mists I saw that the entire event had relocated closer to Victoria Avenue. The reason for this wasn't entirely clear to me, but I suspect that the area closer to the residents can be a little disturbing for those living by the original site. Maybe the ground is an inch or two higher here as well offering a touch more drainage - I remember a couple of years ago wearing my wellies to attend a particularly boggy Beer Fest!

The weather was good and so I popped by for a couple of halves per lunchtime and sought out a nice vantage point for my tipple tasting:

I immediately assaulted my first half:

This one was called "Orange Wheat", I liked it but it was a little hoppy for my liking. Still it had a good taste and although it wasn't as fruity as the name suggested I enjoyed it, a great summer beer. This one was produced by the Green Jack brewery of Lowestoft. I'll give it 8/10 despite the hops.

Lacking much imagination I tried a "Cranberry Wheat" from Norfolk's Iceni brewery. I preferred the previous one. It was a great colour though, as you can see from the photo. It wasn't bad though so 6/10 it is. A change of direction, and glass selection, during the next visit led me to pop over to the Chilfords Vinyard stand. I tried a glass of Schonberger (a single verietal from grapes of the same name). This was good, very very clean tasting. Chilfords wines are very similar to some German wines, but fortunately not the Blue Nun type! I enjoyed the crisp gooseberry notes on this one.

Sadly I don't have photos from the next day's visit, but I had an Elgood's "Black Dog", which was a dark mild and just as good as ever. One of my favourites to be honest 8/10. I had desires on a half of "Red Watch Blueberry Ale" but sadly it wasn't on by this time, so I went for "Raspberry Stout" from the Fenland brewery - in a way this was luck, what a fantastic drink this was! Malty and fruity all at the same time, and as dark as the aforementioned Black Dog. This was my favourite of this year's festival and have to give it full marks 10/10!!!

Once again CAMRA rolled out another popular beer festival in the boozy town of Cambridge. Jez and I decided to attend on the first night as we know how busy these events get on a Friday night or weekend.

Unfortunately I have to start with a complaint this year. I arrived a good five minutes after the first evening's drinking was due to begin only to see a large queue formed along Mill Lane. At first I thought I'd been scuppered by the popularity again, but it soon became obvious that the doors were not open yet! A further 10 minutes passed and then, after a phone call from someone outside who knew someone inside, the doors miraculously opened! It was business as usual from this point on.

So I had 4 halves at a rather sedate pace. There was no attempt to break any records that night lest I not gain entry to my bed in the homeless shelter. Here's the list (typed into my cheap mobile phone as I'd left my pen with the Su Doku club at Willow Walk):

1. Woodfordes - Norfolk Nog (4.6%) - Nice and malty, however a little bit too much hops for my liking 5/10.
2. Titanic - Black Ice (4.1%) - Tasted identical to the aforementioned Nog! 5/10.
3. Sarah Hughes - Dark Ruby Mild (6.0%) - Excellent mild, very red hues as indicated by the name, quite sweet rather than malty, a nice surprise! 9/10.
4. Fullers - Old Winter Ale (4.8%) - Very generic ale, but quite good, once again quite similar to first two I tried. 6/10.

Bonus Beer (the next day):
5. St. Peter's Brewery - Spiced Ale (6.5%) - Interesting taste rather than downright pleasant, tasted a little like burnt cloves, a good one for Christmas I would have thought. 7/10.

The ambiance was very pleasant once again, as usual space is at a premium at these events and while attendee numbers are controlled you'll have to work hard to get a seat if you arrive during a popular spell.

I talked to a number of strange men during my wait for Jez to get back from his haunts around Jesus Green. Most interesting was the discovery that the Norwich beer festival, in the summer, is on for a whole week! Lucky scavvers!

Overall I wasn't as impressed with the selection of beers this year. There were less interesting flavoured beers, in previous years we've had ginger and various other varieties of spiced beer. Maybe this is a sign that brewers are heading for generic, easily marketed ales. Maybe it's just the Special Brew that's spoilt my palate. Only time will tell.

Roll on May and the summer festival!

Thursday

Met up with the rest of the nofear massive plus some other bods for the evening. I grabbed the first drink - a nice Beligium Framboise, utterly lovely. So interesting was it to look at that someone asked me what it was - I think they were after a fruit beer for their wife. Didnt' take a picture of it sadly, but it was excellent, and for over 3 quid for less than a pint it should have been!

This one was really quite nice. Could I taste rose? Maybe I could, or maybe it was just the powers of suggestion playing tricks on me. It was a fine ale though.

By 8pm the site was nearly full and the queue was huge. It was time to take a photo. Note the blue haired person. There are often many people attempting to stand out by using the festival as an opportunity for self-expression.It's also good to try and spot the most nerdy T-shirt slogan. I think I came close with the sighting of "I am a rocket wizard". Hmm...

Here's the next one. Goacher's real mild ale. I must be getting better at picking the ones I like as this was a cracker too. Not too strong but with a very nice malty smack to it. I wasn't convinced by the "nutty" description. It tasted plain malty to me.I should point out that I was drinking halves mainly. Avoiding the binge! I had another one but I didn't take a snap as the light was fading, it was also hellishly busy, one-in one-out was in operation at the entrance to the festival area. Trust me, the best time to go is at lunch time. No queues and no temptation to imbibe too much as the return to work prevents such behaviour!

Friday Lunchtime

I thought I'd try a bit of Suffolk beer next, but not one of the big breweries. I've seen the Earl Soham brewery in passing, so what more excuse did I need to try their Victoria Bitter. It was good. Normally I'm one for milds and fruity numbers than bitter, but this was really nice. It tasted very clean, and the hops wasn't too much for me. Maybe it's a chemical used in other bitters that I don't like. Either way this was good drink!

I had a go on the tombola and did rather well. I won some beer vouchers, so I used one of them to buy another half. I was only going to have one half originally, but hey-ho, free beer!I unwittingly breached the 4.7% limit of the beer voucher by quite a bit. Pig's Ear was a strong but quaffable drink. It was quite malty, but also had an underlying sweetness that gave you an urge to try another sip to see if your tastebuds were lying. An excellent last beer for me for this festival!

Saturday

Went to the festival for a couple of hours in the afternoon. It was really busy, stuck to mead and a glass of English red wine. Mead was spicy and very good - one of my favourite beverages. The red wine was okay, but didn't have the body that most red wine drinkers would go for.

The clouds parted and the whistle for lunchtime was blown. Thus it was time to run down to the beer festival on Jesus Green for a James Bond themed event!

Since it was lunchtime entry was free and as a bonus there were no queues. A return to work later meant limited consumption was the watchword. I entered the compound to be greeted by a large inflated "pint" of Woodforde's Wherry.

I moved immediately upon my first selected half, Raspberry Wheat by the Iceni brewery. I'd had this tipple before, and if anything it was even better this year. Exceptionally clean tasting, the essence of Raspberry (no sweetness) was prevalent and it was a lovely drink. Quite thirst quenching despite the relatively high alcohol content. (Summer beer festival brews are often a little lighter for hot-weather drinking)

I surveyed the scene inside the main keg-laden marquee. Very, very quiet indeed. Most of the people were outside in the glorious weather getting sunburn. Some of the regulars were around, the limping man and his entourage were marking up their festival programme as usual.

Having finished the first half (so to speak) I tried something I'd not had before. This was called "Lavender Honey". The first sip was great, lots of honey taste whilst still being a beer. After that it was all down hill, for me anyway. I hate that bitter over-the-top hops taste, and this beer was full of it. I forced it down, and retreated back from whence I came!

More reports as and when I find time to attend!

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!

CAMRA - the Campaign for Real Ale are well known for their ability to organise piss-ups with the help of breweries and it was with great delight that I travelled, notebook in hand to the 2005 Winter Beer or Ale Festival, this time at the University Sports and Social Club in Mill Lane. It was Friday the 28th of January and the weather was conducive to alcohol abuse, being cool enough to want to remain indoors without being so bad that a trip outside was out of the question.

The first question in my mind as I procured my special oversized half-pint glass tankard was, why does it say "Winter Beer Festival" on the glass and "Winter Ale Festival" on the sheet. A conflict of terminology deep in the political runnings of CAMRA perhaps?

Without much ado I headed to the first counter I could find and grabbed a half of Enville Ginger - a reasonable 4.6%. I was warned by the buxom bloke at the counter that it was very gingery, and hence only suitable for girls. I told him that I was a girl and he should know better than mixing business with pleasure, then I retired to a slot at the end of one of the massive tables in the lower floor.

[ Damien H. Arse came by about an hour ago with some more paintings, finally he has those from our ill fated visit to the Cambridge Beer festival, along with his account of the event, far more lucid than my recollection thats for sure. ]

So. I decided to go to the Cambridge Beer Festival with my agent Mr Hall. We started off at 6 pm on some fucking green part of Cambridge that I have no idea where. Something to do with religion. Satan's Green? Hmm. we already dropped two Bries a few hours before and they were beginning to notice.

Anyway, 6.15pm we were suddenly in a tent with a whole bunch of lizardly looking gentlemen with their manky facial hair, slabbering on about real ales and Unix.

'They want to kill us all! And piss on our corpses!'

Did I just say that aloud. no . no. calm down. One reptile is ahead of us trying to get his head topped up. The bar creature is being polite but I can hear what he's really saying: 'I've served bearded wankers with t-shirts that say 127.0.0.1 for 10 years! Now the joke's on you arsehoooooooole!'

Finally after a split second infinity we were at the head of the queue. We were handed a pint of 'Cat food monthly' from the 'O & B' brewery: Tasted of monkey jism.

Bad vibrations are beginning to emanate from the tent/cathedral. Someone's throwing grapefruits at my head. Splintered mammaries welling up from the time fog. the monkey's were closing in.

7pm. finished the pint, had a crap on the lawn outside. no one noticed, I think? People are watching me.
Hall is shouting: 'STOP LOOKING.. NOTHING TO SEE HERE. see/hear. hear/see.. heresay? Monkay?'

Pulled my pants up.. No need for a wipe-down. The decision to flee back into the tent came suddenly. We found ourselves near the summer ale section. This time Hall chose a pint of 'Red faced blotchy' from the Cambourne Ale company.

One sip and the possibility of physical and mental collapse was nearly reached, as the smell of stale gorilla shit reached my nostrils. It did taste summery though. the summer wastelands of the deepest savannahs from hell. Mind recoiling in horror. must stay focused... must be in total control.

I yammered this mantra to myself for 2 hours while I slowly watched 2 women make out with a fluorescent baboon.

When I bought this to the attention of Hall he flipped and started telling people to watch out for the monkey-fuckers.

We glided into the next dimension, floating. falling until we entered the dark ale section with it's various cocktails of tarred-up beers. A hairless simian offered us a pint of 'nob cheese reserve' - necked it in one gulp and then retched as the stilton-esque and Camembert aroma tried to stifle the stale cheesy chunky cack.

I pulled out a chimp pube which was lodged between me teeth as I got naked and started producing some nob-cheese of my own.

'CAN DO A BETTER JOB YOU RANCOURS!!!' I could hear him/me screaming.

We were both bundled to the floor by the monkey-fuckers and found ourselves awake at a table. outside about 20 seconds-2 hours later. It seemed I had just eaten a battered fried Brie sandwich washed down with a pint of 'dog sex weekly' -, another classic from the 'O & B' brewery.

Hall was standing above me. jabbering on about how he couldn't take me anywhere. I didn't want to anywhere, did I?

Time for another dump I thought. Best to be discrete this time - didn't want to cause any more trouble. so I slowly eased the shite out. and hoped my pants could absorb it.

JESUS WEPT. I smelt of skanky rotten Red Leicester. no one was saying anything, but Hall was noticeably moving away. hmm.

After the smell died down (or we got used to it). we then made a stumbly exit to the Euro beer section, where a nice bit of skirt was serving up the bevvies. (I popped a silano popper just to get the blood rushing once more). While Hall got us a pint of 'Father's Special' from Daneland I believe. or something like that.

Had the smutty overtures of primate pubes. Made me want to fuck orang-utans. There was a trace of spunk on my pants. trying to get it off made me as stiff as a post.

I got the monkey horn bad, and the bargirl knew it. eye contact. she fell in love with me. just before I puked in her face.

We ran out in opposite directions, me heading towards the lights. Hall heading out towards the ground.

So there he went, too weird to live, to fucked to die.

I woke up the next afternoon outside 'reality checkpoint'; naked. bar a banana stuffed up my arse.

– Damien H. Arse.