Saturday, August 8, 2009

Day Ten, London, GBBF

Today is a travel day, so again just some pictures and random comments. We're off to Derby, with side trips to Sheffield and Burton-on-Trent.

Rob Hill, the brewer from Highlands Brewing pouring me a half pint of his excellent Orkney Blast. Their Munro Dark was also excellent.


The SIBA (Society of Independent Brewers) bar


My youngest brother asked me to have a Breakspear for him as that was his beer when we spent a lot of time in England on a consulting job. Turns out it was sort of hard to find. The brewery was bought and closed and only the name remains. The beers are now brewed by Marston's.

Breakspear hand pump.

Me drinking the Breakspear. This one is for you, Bob.

Now the thing I won't tell him unless he asks (or reads it here) is that this was by far the worse beer I had at the entire fest, and the only one I didn't finish. There were all sorts of funky off flavors floating around and it tasted very "grainy" (instead of "malty"). I later talked to a man who had been a fan before the brewery was sold and he confirmed that it used to be a nice beer. Oh well, I tried.

More random shots of the fest.

It was sad to leave. But I'll be back next year or the year after.

The outside of the Earl's Court Exhibition Center (build 1937)

We decided to head for Greenwich to try out the range of Meantime beers at the Greenwich Union pub. On the way we had to change to the Docklands Light Rail at the Tower Hill station and so got to take a tourist picture...

Some big old building in London :)

The Greenwich Union in Greenwich.

Only in Greenwich to business advertise their latitude so boldly.

1 comment:

Rob Sterowski said...

Brakspear's is owned by Marston's, but the beer is brewed at a separate site using the original Brakspear's equipment, not at Marston's brewery in Burton. You probably got a bad pint; some of it is decent enough.