In the excellent company of Jo and our good friend Paul, I made my way down to the National Winter Ales Festival at the Sheridan Suite yesterday evening. Jo and I stopped off for suitably beer-soaky food on the way down (if you’re heading to the NWAF via public transport and are wondering about food on the way, I can heartily recommend Rice in Piccadilly Gardens – purveyors of extremely fine and fast Asian fusion cuisine by the carton-load) and then hopped on the bus for the short ride to the venue.
We flashed our CAMRA cards at the door and were waved in (Thursday’s session being free for CAMRA members, tonight and tomorrow are also £1 off on the door), then handed over a quid for a programme (Jo loves to do the research), another two quid for the cloakroom and then four quid for a couple of souvenir half-pint tankards (pint glasses also available, deposit refundable on exit if you don’t want to keep your glass). Then we met up with Paul and started to think about drinking a beer or two.
This was the first time any of us had been to a National CAMRA festival and we were all quite taken aback by the sheer size of the venue, the crowd (happily busy even for a Thursday, tonight and tomorrow could be absolutely hammered) and the range of beers on offer. The last decent-sized festival we were all at was the SIBA Great Northern, back in October, where they had something like 56 beers from a choice of 200 on offer at one time. Yesterday it seemed as though every one of the programme beers was available at once – some on hand-pull, the majority on gravity dispense – and the choice truly was bewildering.
Luckily, Paul had a decisive brainwave: “Let’s find an IPA to start with.” So we did; after scanning along all four bars we settled on halves of Summer Wine Diablo. 6.0% ABV and a rich, golden amber hue, it gave off a waft of marmalade aromas and the flavour was all about the sticky, sweet oranges and hops. If I’m honest, I could have done with something lighter and fresher to start the session with. It reminded me a lot of the pint of Moor Hoppiness I’d tried in the Marble Arch a while back; I was a bit over-faced by that one as well. Ah well, onwards and upwards.
Next up, one that I’d spotted being recommended on Twitter earlier in the day: Milton Nero. A 5.0% ABV stout, gravity dispensed so I was expecting something flat as a pancake, but still, the lack of conditioning on this one surely didn’t do it any favours. Flavour-wise, it was milk chocolate on a biscuit base and not much else to it. I thought I’d p-p-p-picked up a Penguin. Paul said dark chocolate digestive. Jo reckoned it reminded her of bourbon (again, the biscuit, not the malt liquor). Coupled with a lack of depth and a thin mouth-feel, it meant this multi award-winning beer failed to impress on the night and I was very glad I was only drinking a half. Time to try something a little more adventurous, perhaps?
How about Black Isle Hibernator, a 7.0% ABV oatmeal stout; surely that should pack a tasty and interesting punch? Disaster. Sugar, sugar, a touch of fruit cordial, more sugar and very little else… reminded me of nothing so much as blackcurrant cough syrup. I couldn’t even finish a half of this one, I had to ask a bar volunteer to dump it in the slops bucket for me and I rather wished I’d taken the hint when the chap who served me asked “a half?” in a very “we serve the stuff in thirds as well, you know…” kinda way.
By this point – despite the ongoing excellence of the company and the hugely enjoyable conversation – I have to admit I was beginning to feel a little despondent. Three beers so far and none of them had managed to hit the spot. I realised early on that the lack of conditioning wasn’t helped by the fact that none of the hand-pumps had sparklers, but I didn’t want to ask if there were any in the room (I knew that Tandleman, that stalwart champion of the sparkler, was one of the festival organisers, so if he hadn’t been able to impress on them the key role of the small, plastic nozzle, then surely a request from me wasn’t going to sway anyone). But still, was I going to be doomed to an evening of flat, warm beer? That was the other problem – the room, large though it was, was extremely stuffy and even with the cooler jackets on the casks, surely that wasn’t helping the beer quality at all?
Or maybe I just had my festival tactics wrong. I was mindful of something that The Reluctant Scooper said a while back about how he used to seek out beers by breweries he’d never heard of, just to find yet another variant on boring brown beer, whilst something excellent he already knew went un-drunk. Should I in fact be sticking to what I knew, or at least, beers by breweries I was familiar with, rather than trying to expand my horizons? Or would I be better off drinking my favourite beers in my favourite pubs, in much better condition? A dilemma and no mistake.
I eventually settled on erring on the side of caution and went for a third pint measure of a beer I knew: Dunham Massey Winter Warmer. I had happy memories of this 6.6% ABV winter ale, and even on gravity pour, I’m happy to say that it restored a smile to my face last night: sweet and rich, with hints of sherry and lots of malt, it was a pleasant pick-me-up after a disappointing start to the session.
After that, Paul was in IPA-mode again so I suggested, and then joined him on, a half of Worthington’s White Shield. An old favourite and another great fall-back… rich and malty with a big hop hit on the after-taste, just what the beer doctor ordered. It still could definitely have done with a sparkler, but it wasn’t all that different to the bottled version, so I was happy enough.
Then I strayed again. Possibly my judgement was getting a bit lax, possibly my ‘stick to what you know’ strategy was beginning to feel too safe, what with all these potentially amazing new beers around to try, but I decided that I liked the sound of Liverpool Organic‘s Russian Imperial Stout. Surely, surely this 8.6% ABV imperial stout couldn’t be another dud? Yeah, yeah, the triumph of hope over experience… again, it turned out to be another massively sweet, sugary beer, with just the faintest touch of liquorice. But seriously: where were the roast malts, where were the sharp, bitter coffee notes, the rich seams of dark chocolate? Where was the flavour? I managed to finish the third pint I’d ordered but again, was rather disappointed. Time for one last roll of the dice, before heading home.
At the start of the evening I’d spotted a beer called Matron’s Delight – from one of my very favourite breweries, local outfit Outstanding – and had been saving it for the end. I could trust good old Outstanding not to let me down, not with an 8.0& ABV strong winter ale, couldn’t I? They certainly didn’t. At last, a beer with some actual condition and flavour! First of the night with a head (of sorts), Matron’s Delight delivered deep, rich fruit flavours – blackberries and plums – in a sweet (but not too sweet) spiced-fruitcake of a beer. It was very lovely indeed and I was very glad to find a redeemer at the very end of a largely lacklustre session.
So, there you go. A night of distinctly mixed results. At best I discovered a delicious new beer from a favourite brewery and re-acquainted myself with a couple of old favourites. At worst, I tried a few beers that just didn’t taste all that great. But the really annoying thing was that I ended up disliking three beers that under other circumstances – had then been served differently – I rather think I would have absolutely loved. I mean, strong oatmeal stout, imperial stout, malty chocolate stout? These are the sorts of beers what I usually thoroughly enjoy. Last night though, it just wasn’t the case.
Feel free to tell me where I went wrong with my selection strategy, or tell me about all the absolutely fantastic beers I missed because they were on the pump / cask just next door to the ones I tried, or tell me that I was just expecting too much in terms of beer quality at a large beer festival. But I’ll still say this: the SIBA Great Northern Festival was head and shoulders above the NWAF on that front and I think it was all down to a combination of two factors: the use of a sparkler to provide proper condition in the served beer, plus the simple, but rather civilised procedure of swapping your glass for a clean one whenever you went to the bar. Okay, maybe the sheer size of the NWAF would make this second measure a logistical impossibility. But I stand by my assertion that all the beers I had last night would have tasted so much better if they’d been served sparkler-style. Feel free to correct me if a technicality (something to do with the behaviour of a beer at room rather than cellar temperature, perhaps?) makes me completely wrong on that score, but that’s my position and I’m sticking to it for now.
And as a result, whilst I’ll definitely be making time to visit next year’s SIBA Great Northern on at least two evenings, I’m going to have to have a good think about next year’s NWAF. Unless I can come up with a better plan for identifying the good quality stuff (Jo rekcons I should have spent more time reading the brochure, which is a fair point, but then she studied it in detail and yet her luck was about as mixed as mine; she had to ditch two of the beers she tried to my one) and some simple method for cleaning the glass between beers (a bottle of water in my pocket for a quick rinse should do it) then I think I’d rather spend the night down the Marble Arch, the Angel, Fringe, Common, or the Port Street Beer House (which opens in Manchester at the end of the month and sounds amazing) instead. Because that way I’ll be able to sample just as many different beers in the course of an evening, and at least I’d know that they would all be served in tip-top condition.
No explosion, no need to wipe down the ceiling or ourselves. So far so good, and the pour was very promising indeed. I mean, look at that! Lovely, no? I couldn’t wait to try it. 
