Travels With Nate

A while ago I had mentioned that I was involved in the social media side of Norwich’s first ever craft beer festival and now I have a list of beers that will be on over the course of the festival and everything is finalised for this coming Thursday, I figured I’d write a blog. Firstly, what/where/when/how/why? Where: St Margaret’s Art Church, St Benedict’s Street, Norwich When: Thursday 9 th October – Saturday 11 th October (5pm - 11 Thursday then 12pm til 4 & 5pm til 11 Friday and Saturday) Cost: £4 (£2 for NSV wristband holders) includes branded glass which can be returned for £1 refund Food:  Proper Pizza Co & Meat Merchants Beers: A mixture of cask, keg, bottles & cans We are very happy to have the following breweries with their own bars, these are: Firebrand Brewery – A seriously bloody good up and coming brewery from Cornwall. I first sampled their beers at Craft Beer Rising this year and was impressed so I’m excited to see these guys ...

On Sunday some friends and I decided to travel down to Oval Space in Hackney for London Craft Beer Festival. As I mentioned in my preview blog, it’s a festival whereby all of the beer is included in admission price as well as the breweries serving their own beer (or at least someone who knows about beer. Probably). We got to the venue and collected our glass, bottle caps (third pint tokens) and program before heading up to the room of doom. The Venue: It was a small but comfortable venue with a decked area where food was, as well as a balcony area overlooking the old gas terminals. There were breweries all around the room and a stage in the middle for the performers. Across the road there was also another venue that they were using to promote holidays in Flanders. We sampled some delicious cheese and whitebait. The Food: I would have liked to see some more reasonably priced food. There was a stand selling hot dogs in burger baps for £6.50 which seemed like a ri...

Imagine being able to go to a beer festival, where all of the bars are manned by the breweries representing them AND beer is included in your ticket price. I’m just going to let that sink in for a while. You ready yet? Yes, at London Craft Beer Festival all of the beer from each the 24 breweries is included in your £35 (+booking fee) ticket price. For that money you can have a ‘small pour’ of every single beer in there, if you wish, as well as 4 ‘big pours’ which amount to 1/3 rd pint each… you also get your LCBF glass and a program with information of all of the breweries involved. This kind of beer festival is based on ones you find in America. They’re not like the ones here where you pay to get in, pay for a glass then pay for all of your beer. You get to try everything if you want, for one price. I think it’s a great concept because for me, a beer festival is all about trying as many different beers as possible. Amongst the breweries represented will be Br...

Well, Norwich Beer Festival is over for another year and I just kinda felt that being one of these blogger types I should tell you about all of my favourite beers and such. Last week was a pretty mental week... I did Monday evening, Tuesday evening, Thursday evening and both sessions on the Friday because, well, research. Yes, let's use that excuse. It was a long and extensive research trip into the styles of beer and presentation of a beer festival. Hey, I've been taking loads of these this year! So let's get into it, shall we? My favourite beers were as followed: UK Cask (Outside of Norfolk): Arbor Ales Yakima Valley IPA - IT'S A TROPICAL FRUIT FEST! That bitter grapefruit you find in a lot of IPAs merges deliciously with mangoes, lychees and a bit of sweet apricot on top of a soft malty base. This is without a doubt a contender for beer of the year. I have absolutely no idea how this did not win beer of the festival (although the winner, Slaters Haka was well...

For quite some time now, Melissa Cole has been hinting about an exciting project that she was involved in but was sworn to secrecy but finally it was announced a few weeks ago... Urban Sessions is occurring! Well what Urban Sessions is, is a pop up beer festival/bar/musical event/food/awesomeness in The Old Baths in Hackney Wick which will be around for 4 months. I happened to be in London at the weekend so I thought it'd be rude not to pop down for the soft launch. The idea is that they have a shitload of beers from all around the world, along with cocktails and ciders and essentially just party! Over the 4 months they have about 500 different beers on as well as pop up tasting sessions, monthly beer matched dinners, spirit education events and Meet The Brewers, so I'm going to need to revisit a few times!

6am. That's the time I got up on Saturday to get the 7:30am train with Ben , Jay & Lee to go to Free Comic Book Day & London's Brewing Beer Festival . 6am. I don't even get up that early when I have work during the week. Thankfully the train journey was made bearable throughout my tiredness with awesome company and Stone Vertical Epic 12.12.12. A bit special for train beer and very delicious. As soon as we got to London, we headed to Forbidden Planet comic book shop - and got lost in the process - as it was free comic book day. We queued up and claimed our free comic book goodie bag and spent about an hour looking at the various books and memorobilia before heading to the Convent Garden area for cupcakes. After spending about a fucking hour trapped on the central line sweating our tits off we finally got to Bethnal Green tube and walked down to the London Fields Brewery taproom. We saw that the queue of London's Brewing was massive and not moving so we dec...

I’m usually quite savvy at keeping up with all of the various beery events that are happening within the UK yet somehow Liverpool Craft Beer Expo had somehow eluded me until I got an email about it from Tony who is one of the organisers asking if I fancy going to the trade session. It’d be rude not to really. I have to say, it sounds very good. It’s taking place at The Baltic Triangle in Liverpool between 14th – 16 th June and will feature over 80 keg and 50 cask beers . That’s a lot of beer! If the beer wasn’t enough to pull you in, the expo will also feature live brewing demonstrations from some of the UK’s best breweries so festival goers can actually see what goes into a beer. Who said beer festivals aren’t educational? Breweries featured will include Camden Town, Beavertown, Magic Rock, Summer Wine, Partizan & The Kernel. All hot breweries at the moment that I have recently been enjoying beers from! With all that beer, you’re also going to need some food and...

Walk up the stairs. Turn the corner. A corridor lined with tables and white drapes. I hear chattering a clinking glasses but I see no beer. Turn right. Ah, a table full of glassware but still no beer. I walk directly to the table and purchase my pint glass. I turn around. Ahh… tables with keg fonts and bottles. I instantly walk towards Brewdog ’s bar as I see my buddy Joe working behind there. He takes my glass and pours me a half of Libertine Black Ale, a beer I already know and love. We take a walk around the room to find more kegs, bottles and familiar faces from twitter. We have a Steen Brugge Wit Blanche from the Palm Breweries and chat to the guy behind the stall who I know only as @SpyRight . The Wit is refreshing. It has the right balance of orange and coriander with a lovely creaminess. Next stop is Curious Drinks to catch up with Pat . I try the IPA and it’s nice but I wasn’t too thrilled with the earthiness of it. I then decide to drink an old love, Curious Brew, ...

Yesterday I went to The Great British Beer Festival . Originally, I wasn’t going to go but a friend from twitter offered me two tickets to the Trade Session so I thought it would be rude not to go. It would give me the chance to put a face to all of these 140 character personalities. So I did it. I embarked on a 3 hour coach journey from Norwich and met my mate Tom. Was it worth it? Oh hell yeah it was.

And it's not the Olympics. In fact, I figure that the amount of alcohol in my system by the time I leave at 7 o'clock tonight will render me unfit to partake in any sport. Hell, I will probably have trouble getting back to Victoria. It's the Great British Beer Festival and it's on all week until Saturday at The Olympia in London. Today is the Trade Session and I will be there between 12pm & 7pm (it opens to the public at 5pm) I will be wearing a Carling polo shirt. OMG THE IRONY LOLZ. No, fuck off. But seriously, if you see me, you should come over for a cuddle or a high five or something. If not, I hate you and you should go cry somewhere. Have fun and I hope to see you all there. I love you. Nate http://www.twitter.com/NateDawg27

So, the past weekend saw Dragon Hall Beer Festival 2 and it was a massive success. We had pretty much the whole crew of volunteers back plus some new additions which was great. We’re a great team. We had about 30 cask ales and bottled beers from Norfolk as well as 4 kegged beers and 9 bottled beers from Ghent in Belgium. Basically, if you missed it you’re an absolute fool. My two favourite beers of the weekend: Van Steenberge Gulden Draak 9000 Quadrupel – A wonderful example of a quadruple. 10.5% but definitely doesn’t taste it. Got nice caramel and malty aromas. Flavours are caramel, bananas & custard, light yeast and spice. Norwich Bear Platinum Blonde – A premium bitter. Pours a lovely golden orange colour with a bubbly off-white head. Biscuity malt aromas with some citrus. Tastes citrusy (possibly lemon) with that same buscuity malt flavour. Definitely my favourite cask ale of the weekend. See Dawn ’s impression of me here: https://twitter.com/#!/Nat...

I'm pleased to let you all know that I have the final beer lists for Dragon Hall Beer Festival 2012 and I am going to share them with you! Exciting, I know! Dragon Hall is a unique Grade 1 listed Medieval trading hall dated at around 1430 on King Street in Norwich. It's a wonderful building. Last year, Dragon Hall in Norwich hosted their first ever beer festival which I volunteered at. It was a great weekend. We had loads of different beers (Including Dragon's Tipple which was brewed especially for us by Tipples brewery in Acle). It was a celebration of Norfolk beer. It was awesome. I'm so happy that it's back for a second year! This year is going to be bigger and better as we don't just have beers from Norfolk... oh no... we have managed to source draft beers from Van Steenberge Brewery in Belgium too, as well as other bottled Belgian Beers from Van Steenberge, De Proef, De Gruut, Roman & Bavik! Full confirmed beer lists ...