Great British Beer Festival

Imagine a great big open space, filled with purveyors of specialty beer and cider... Taps stretching as far as the (slightly inebrieated) eye can see, pouring the spectrum from ale to porter.

Sounds like heaven, but it's actually Earl's Court. It's the Great British Beer Festival -- and great is no exageration.

Okay, it's actually a big ugly exposition hall, full of beer, and the type of people who like to drink beer. I'm pretty sure CAMRA's membership is largely made up of That Old Guy Who's Always Drunk Down at the Local. It was weird to see legions of That Drunk Guy, up and walking around in orange Staff tshirts, like badly-dressed zombies raised from the dead to do charity work.

At first I started keeping track of what I drank. We began with the Badger Brewery, where we shared a Hare Ale and a Fursty Ferret, before moving onto the NorthEast row, where I had a brown ale that tasted like chocolate and toffee. Next was another ale, which had that skunky smell a lot of good beer has, but unfortunately also tasted skunky. After that, I no longer remember what I was drinking. Funny, that.




Aside from the beer, the highlight of the day (we were there about 7 hours) was these two guys who tried to pick up on Emily and I. Turns out they were cops, there with a bunch of coworkers... It's always interesting trying to tactfully drop the already-taken, got-a-boyfriend-thanks piece of info, but I managed to do it quite well, I thought. Cop-guy was explaining how he was on the drug squad, and did busts, and had to wear the full riot gear. I asked if they were supposed to identify themselves by shouting "Police!" when they kicked down the door -- he said they were. I said: "Funny, 'cause they didn't when they kicked down my boyfriend's door..."



Quite the look he gave me for that one. Didn't bother explaining that it was a case of mistaken address... Good times.