Camra real ale festivals. Discuss

Full beards and christmas jumpers as far as the eye could see and a car park full of Volvo Estates.

I'm heading down tomorrow night RR.

It's not the consumption of the ale that is the problem, it's the Sunday Steamers left in the toilet the next day that makes me suffer

We don't have anywhere near enough real ale in NI, I love going down the list.

Very funny watching the serious people in pullovers and the aforementioned beards, drinking halves slowly, swishing the ale around there mouths and making notes in the programme.

I've never liked real ale, but we used to have a big festival at our university. One year, a mate of mine who is very firmly in the chunky jumper/tasting notes/long discussion school of beer drinkers, asked if he could visit that weekend as the festival was such a big deal.

He arrived on the Thursday night and Friday morning we headed down to the beer festival. We were in my car, as I lived in a house a fair way away, and the plan was to drop him at the venue and I'd join him later.

For the whole trip in he was explaining how important it all was, the beers he particularly wanted to taste, how they were produced and how this wasn't a question of finding the strongest beers and getting hammered. I nodded sagely and agreed it wasn't that kind of event.

As we pulled up, there was a chap upside down in a hedge right outside the doors - the festival had been on for less than an hour. 'Must've had a bad pint' was all my friend could muster.

On a topical note, Bishops Finger

Orioles brilliant

OP has given more evidence that lager drinkers are a bunch of pooves.

Orioles story is why I never drink real ale,too many bad pints.Lager might be average but at least it's consistently average and won't have you throwing chunks for no reason.
Can't be arsed with the merits of a good pint either.

you can tell a bad pint by the look and from one mouthful, you do not have to drink the whole glass to convince yourself

And by the fact you've wasted £3 on a warm beer with twigs in it.

they might be free pretzels

or something out the barmaids beard

free pair of pants wiv every pint

Got free tickets to one about 20 years ago.
All the real ale drinkers having half pints.
Me and my naive mate downing pints .
I was out of my tree , walked back home through the park over a ledge ....about 10 feet , could have been 100 feet for all I knew.
Felt like alcoholic poisoning for 24 hours .

Never going to one again.

Its people like Y that take all the fun out ov it....

Monty Python-Philosopher's Beer Drinking Song
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJNZNwxEzE4

I remember going to one of the early one's at our town hall and I asked this chap for a pint of this bitter, sorry mate we don't do it in pints. He got a pyrex jug out and measured a third of a pint, it was that strong thet's all they would sell you.

Oh dear, where's Erse when you need him.

Fart, sniff.

great stuff real ale....taste a 3.4% real mild compared to a 3.4& lager and youll notice have much flavour the mild has compared to the lager.

Yes it has more flavour it just tastes sh1te though,warm alcoholic water with twigs in it not for me.

I didn't get to sample too many different types as they ran out of most of it by 9pm. I did end up sozzled however and with my mate working there I had very generous half pint measures. He also kept us on the right track as to what was the best of what was left.

We left early as my other mate had a bus to catch but I was sleeping by 11.30pm.

A pleasing night.

What you have to watch at these fetivals is when you get bored of the taste of ale and think, a cider will be nice. Thats stuff is drinkable but evilly potent!

It tastes like crap. The only reason you drink Real Ale is to get real drunk

I was weaned on Bathams bitter so I’m an expert.
The idea of a proper beer drinker sipping halves is ridiculous.
Bathams beer was 5% Alc. in the old days and it was called  ‘’sleeping beer.’’
It’s a tad less potent now though.

They used to run a trip on a Friday night called the Bathams Eight.
Bathams had eight real ale pubs scattered around the area, and the beer bus as it was called, which also served beer, would pick the drinkers up early on the night, and take them round the eight pubs stopping for a pint at each one.
You occasionally saw the bus careering around the town with the passengers shouting and cheering. 
Anybody who couldn’t manage the eight pints had their names taken down and reported to the management!

Real ale drunk by real men.

No scene for limp-wristed Chit Chatters at all.

I drunk 8 pints at a minimum Dr Crippin and 718.

Hic!

A typical real ale drinker
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http://www.universalmetropolis.com/magazine/articles/images/morrisdancer.jpg

I love real Beer (not lager) but I would never go to a festival.  No point in drinking lots of different beers you'd quickly be to pissed to appreciate them.

5% you want to try special brew son.

first time i went to one at sunderland poly , was only 18, had about 8 pints of marstons owd rodger, dear me, was i tipsy, still got mark on tooth where fell off bus ( it was a double decker ) .

5%  you want to try special brew son.

What eights pints of it?

There's beer for sipping and beer for drinking.

Mind the step on your way out.

Real ale has saved two pubs in my town,one even closed for a few months after years of poor trade.
Steaming Billy brewing co. re-opened the joint and now does the best buiness for miles around,proper rammed.
Even manages to attract the punters with no palate,better known as skol or general lager drinkers.