Travels With Nate

I am a member of a Facebook group called CAMRA. Y'know, the Campaign for Real Ale? It's not an official group but a lot of the people who use it are official CAMRA types. Well, stereotypes anyway. See, some people are alright and they'll post photos of bottled beers which you'd expect in beer groups but then there's the rest of them. "Bottled beer? Why are you not in your local pub?"  they cry. Alright, we all love the pub and we know that pubs are closing every day but it shouldn't be a a problem that we drink at home too as it's supporting the industry all the same. See, CAMRA was never meant to be about pubs. It was meant to be about the beer. It's great that they're helping the fight in protecting out pubs but the issue is that a lot of members are missing the point. The point isn't that we're not drinking in pubs because I can assure you that we are. The point is that we're supporting the beer industry, and we're ...

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...

Keg beer… Alternatively known as craft beer… ·         Is consistently good… it doesn’t need to be conditioned in the cellar of a pub. ·          Aren’t filtered or pasteurised making for a naturally awesome beer. ·          Isn’t flat and warm. ·          It doesn’t look like you're wanking someone off as you pour a pint. ·          Doesn’t take much effort to look after kegs. ·          Is flavoursome, refreshing and cold. Cask ales like best bitters and milds are different from keg beers. They: - ·          Are all cask conditioned meaning if a pub doesn’t condition it for long enough it’s shit. This happens a lot of the time. ·       ...

It has come to my attention that CAMRA are being twats (again). It’s even worse this time as they’re being twats about a friend’s brewery. It’s great news that Ketts Tavern which is run by owners of Norwich Bear Brewing Co , Dawn and Kev, is in the good beer guide. I mean really good news. Both Ketts Tavern and The Rose are wonderful pubs that you should definitely go to if you ever visit Norwich. They’re run by friendly people who are passionate about beer and have great bar staff too. They have pool tables and show Norwich games which are always good features. Oh and they have beer from Norwich Bear Brewing Co. So yeah, about the beer… which is the topic of this post and why I am angry at CAMRA.

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.

Image taken from here: http://gbbf.org.uk/ I went to The Great British BeerFestival last year (2011), all alone because I have no friends. It’s hardly surprising, is it? I am joking; of course, I have lots of friends but none who like beer so much that they’ll travel 120 miles to drink it. Even though I went alone, I had a bloody good day out. I drank some wonderful beers (don’t ask me which although I was wearing my Dark Star ‘Don’t Drink Hophead’ t-shirt that I won through a twitter campaign but I drank Hophead anyway, being the rebel that I am) and met some awesome new people who I’m still in contact with through the wonderful world of twitter. I also got to show off my awesome shoes that @BeeryMatt loved a lot (I may have to break them out for this year’s affair, actually).

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 ...