At this year’s GBBF the Bières sans Frontières stand had grown considerably and been split up amongst a number of bars by country. I was very pleased to see that one of the countries that was well represented this year was Italy, a land that I associated until recently with fizzy yellow beer that tastes pretty good but always costs too much compared to the wine in the restaurant where you’re trying it. However, after reading Zak Avery’s tales of wandering around the beer spots of Rome last summer I realised that there was something I was missing about Italian beer, and I don’t like missing out. I had a long and drunken chat with the chap on the bar and he recommended me a few beers, including one that I chose mainly for the name – Bastarda Rossa.

Google translate backs me up on my assumed translation – Red Bastard. It’s made by Birra Amiata, who are based in the shadow of Mount Amiata near Arcidosso in Tuscany, about 100km south of Florence. The beer itself is a red ale made with chestnuts as an integral part of the brewing process. The area is known for its chestnut production, even having an IGP – Protected Geographical Indication, and the brewery buy them milled to a similar size as grain, using them in the mash as both a flavouring agent and a provider of sugars – the bottle says that chestnuts make up 20% of the ingredients by weight. The beer is normally sold in 75cl bottles, but it looks like they’re now doing 330mls as well, as that’s what I got. They updated all their labels sometime last year to make them more beer geek friendly, which is a good sign that they’re looking at kicking them out to the wider world, and it gives the following info:

• Alta fermentazione – top fermented
• Non pastorizzata – non-pasteurised
• Non microfiltrata – non-microfiltered (they just do a regular barrier filter to get rid of any lumps)
• Rifermentata in bottiglia – bottle conditioned (which I wish I’d known before pouring, although I don’t think my pouring in the yeast hurt any…)
• Hops: Hallertau and WGV (Whitbread’s Goldings Variety) in the boil
• IBUs: 18

Which is pretty extensive for a beer label. The website claims three hops, so I assume that they dry hopped it with something afterwards or just changed the recipe since my bottle was brewed. It poured a rather cloudy (I know now why…) orangey red and had a nose of freshly shelled roasted chestnuts, sweet malt and a hint of sour white wine. To taste it was quite nutty, but in a rounded, oily way rather than a bitter, nut skin-like one, with a hint of the forest (green leaves, dry leaves and bark), a big malty middle with controlled sweetness and a hint of sugary sweetness at the finish. Quite tasty and definitely not what I expected to appear from Italy until recently.

Hopefully I’ll get round to the rest of the Italian beers I picked up soon – I need the space for my Christmas supplies…

Before the boozes though a couple of comments about the festival. Firstly: well done – it was one of the better GBBFs I’ve been to in recent memory. I didn’t have an off beer, the bar staff were all friendly and helpful, and the beer was managed so that it would last well through the week. However, the thing I was most impressed with was the stuff that doesn’t necessarily fall into CAMRA’s remit – foreign ale and cider. Rather than lumping them as two big bars like usual they instead spread them around a bit this time, with a couple of cider bars and at least two Bieres San Frontieres stands. The range of foreign beer was impressive, with the US cask/keg bar limiting themselves to ‘only’ putting on 27 barrels a day so as to keep things running throughout the festival, and there was enough expertise behind the bars that even when nothing I wanted was available (mainly due to not having been put on yet) I was still able to pick up a round that met the palates of my companions and I.

The only downer was the fact that many of the stewards are still arseholes. I had one threaten to throw me out within the first hour or so for the crime of trying to take a phone call and popping into a fire escape to do so. Yes this was naughty, no it didn’t require a threat of violence or swearing at me, especially as I finished my call, moved out of the fire escape and apologised as soon as I saw him walking towards me. I remember working at the festival and speaking to a number of stewards who were dismayed at the arseholeage of some of their companions – the idiot who shouted at me is one that I’ve seen at a number of GBBFs in the past and one that I will happily avoid in the future. I know the GBBF is staffed by volunteers (I’ve been one on a number of occasions and only wasn’t this year due to running out of holiday) but it’s good to be selective, especially with your enforcement division.

Anyways, beer. Me and the gang were on halves, apart from one that is noted below, and did some sharing around so there are significantly more beers below than were bought specifically for me. That said, I was a bit fragile on Thursday morning…

Bollington Best: A hoppy best bitter that was dangerously drinkable. Despite it being the first beer of the day (at about midday) it disappeared worryingly fast. (Winner of the Bronze medal in the Best Bitter category – discovered after purchase and well deserved)

Amber Chocolate Orange: Smelled of chocolate orange, tasted of soap and chocolate orange… I heard later in the day that the barrels of this were quite variable in oranginess – this one was quite orangey.

White Park Kellyhopter: My plan was to stick on the hoppy beers, this continued that plan – sticky and sweet without quite enough hops to stop it becoming floral and cloying.

B&T Edwin Taylor’s Extra Stout: Smells like chocolate, tastes like coffee…

Harvey’s Sussex XX Mild: My first darker beer of my own of the day and cheating because I already know I liked it. A chocolatey mild with an edge of astringency.

Clearwater Red Smiler: crunchy white unripe melon and honey.

De Molen Hot and Spicy: AKA ‘That Chilli Beer’. This is probably the most silly beer I tried all day – a 10%ABV smoked Imperial Stout with chilli. Big and dark, smoky and spiked with a strong green chilli flavour and burn. We discovered quite by accident that it matches very well with orange and chilli chocolate (if you like a lingering burning sensation). One to definitely try a sip of if you can – a half pint may be too much.

Mighty Oak Zephyr: An excellent combination of honey and citrusy hop. It was slightly too pine-laden for my taste, but definitely good for a half.

Cairngorm Trade Winds: One of my favourite beers of all time. Still pretty damn tasty.

Augustiner Edelstoff: A rather nicely balanced lager with a sweetness and hoppiness.

Wensleydale Semer Water: Tasted like a pond. And not in a good way. Very pondy.

Brampton Gold Bud: Sweetened grapefruit nose, sour grapefruit body. Made me yearn for St Peter’s Grapefruit, although this might be better.

Six Point Gemini: My first American beer of the day, recommended for me as the silliest IPA they had on. ‘Hop flavoured bubblegum’ say my notes. Sour oranges and big hops – silly and just what I needed. ‘A hop delivery mechanism’.

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale: Great when fizzy but even better from a cask like this was – fuller bodied and a little less bitter than usual.

Thornbridge Raven: My beer of the day – a perfectly balanced black IPA, with both big hops and dark flavours. How a black IPA should be in my book.

All Gates Mad Monk: Thick, deadly, tasty black beer.

Baird Kurofune Porter: One of the only Japanese beers I got to try (I forgot about them until I was leaving…). Big coffee flavours and exactly what I’d hoped a Japanese porter would be like – refined and elegant.

Raw Grey Ghost IPA: Sweet and grapefruity with a grapefruit finish. I like grapefruity beers a lot.

Windsor & Eton Knight of the Garter: A solid session beer but nothing lifechanging – malty with a nice hit of hop at the end.

Dorset Piddle Silent Slasher: My one punnily named beer of the day. Dusty hops and a buttery body.

O’Hanlon’s Stormystay: It tasted almost sherried with lots of fruit.

Franklin’s Dark: Not quite as sweet as it needed to be to be a good ruby mild.

Fuller’s Brewers Reserve #3: The beer that almost got me to go down on trade day – the third in Fuller’s series of barrel aged barley wines, this time finished in an Auchentoshan cask. I knew about it having met thev Morrison Bowmore (owner of Auchentoshan) master blender and former Auchentoshan distillery manager at an event a few weeks back and was looking forward to trying to grab some. They only had one cask a day at the GBBF and they wouldn’t tell me when it was going on, and when I wandered past and saw a massive queue I thought my luck was out. However, on a sortie to buy a round later I took my spare third glass just in case and found that they hadn’t sold out, which was nice. This was only served in thirds and was a rather pricy £1.80 a go but I, unlike everyone else on my table, loved it. I need to ping the Auchentoshan PR people and find out what sort of cask it was, as the beer had become almost entirely sherry-like and was very tasty – “Medium amontillado sherry with a hint of beer” say the notes. Random fact: the master blender in question, Jeremy Stephens, started off his career as a brewer at Fuller’s.

Newman’s Mammoth: Big malt and a sweet fruity finish.

Blythe Staffie: Excellently grapefruitiness.

Highland Dark Munro: Chocolate malt, cream and barley. A really easy drinking stout.

De Molen Rasputin: More from the mad Dutch lot who brought us Hot and Spicy – a rich Russian stout that is way too easy to drink considering it’s over 10% ABV. It was also not in the festival programme, which confused me a lot at the time. I had been drinking for a while.

Langham Hip Hop: Hoppy, golden. Boring, nice.

King’s Old Ale: My standard Christmas tipple, now being brewed in the same place but by a new brewer. Not quite as nutty as I remember, but I don’t think he’s done much recipe tweaking yet…

Hebden Wheat: A bit of a boring end, this was just a very solid wheat beer. Although as my palate was properly blown it could have been the best beer I’d ever tasted and I probably wouldn’t have noticed…

Anyways, I also swung by the Italian beer bar and have a number of interesting beers (including a chestnut ale called Bastarda Rossa – I really hope that means Red Bastard) to try over the up and coming months. Hopefully I’ll remember to write about them…

On day one I was coming from work so wasn’t able to join the queue of CAMRA members who bought their tickets in advance and take part in the traditional scramble for tables when the doors opened (after a trek through the tunnels beneath Earl’s Court so as to keep the main doors opened for the queue of people who still needed to part with cash). I turned up at about 1:30pm to find a table and chair already saved for me by drinking buddy Bob, which was nice. It does seem that CAMRA have noticed the seating issue, with a question on their yearly questionnaire asking if we’d be willing to pay for guaranteed seating. I would, but that’s because I am a) lazy and b) old before my time. The last time I volunteered at the festival, the last year at Olympia, I helped put out all of the tables and chairs and despite their scarceness later in the day I can vouch for the fact that there are a lot of them.

A little bit of the festival…

Me, Bob and the rest of the gang who floated in over the days have fallen into a fairly predictable GBBF routine – find a table, obtain many pork scratchings from The Crusty Pie Company, buy rounds of halves from a bar chosen by whoever’s round it is, go home later than planned. The only break in that this year was that it took until Thursday for Bob to make use of the ‘Five bags of scratchings for £5′ offer and Friday for me, something that usually happens within minutes of arriving. As usual the pies from The Crusty Pie lot were good and my main sustenance for the latter half of the week, something I am now rectifying with a diet of carrots, peas, potatoes, limes and assorted botanicals (although those last two are mainly being delivered in mixed drink form along with quinine).

The biggest change this year was that instead of the bars being ordered by region, with each bar grouping together local breweries, they instead alphabetised by subregion, with West Sussex, West Yorkshire and Worcestershire all sitting on the same bar rather than by their more geographic neighbours. At first I was rather against this, with my forcefully put across opinion of ‘Change is Bad’ being echoed by many of my bearded CAMRA brethren, but after the first few rounds I realised that it didn’t really matter – with regional beer styles gradually going out of fashion and with breweries producing interesting brews wherever they are in the country, the groupings on each bar didn’t really make any difference unless there were specific breweries that you were looking for, and as we had a programme that wasn’t particularly difficult. The naming of each bar after a military commander may not have helped change CAMRA’s usual olde-worldy image, but at least this time we didn’t have scantily clad women as the mascots, even if they were chosen ‘to empower female drinkers’ in previous years.

One thing that especially interested me this year was the doubling of the number of American beers, growing the Bières sans Frontières foreign beer bar to half as big again (maybe double) and providing us with a load of interesting beers straight from the cask, in some cases beers that don’t really get a cask release in the US, as well as in bottles or from the pump. Unfortunately I didn’t make it over there much until the Friday, at which point they had pretty much sold out of everything – even with the increased number of casks the hassles of importing the beer and the difficulty in obtaining much of it still meant that stocks weren’t as high as could have been sold. That said, there was still a vast quantity of British beer to try and I’ll just have to make sure to shift my bar patronage to be more heavily American earlier in the week next time.

So, the important bit – the beers. I didn’t write everything down and these were not all mine, as being the caring and sharing types we passed each beer around the table. Better for our ticky-lists of beers, better for our increasingly fragile livers.

Left Hand Milk Stout – my first beer and one from the USA, picked up on my way to find Bob on arriving. It was a very dark beer with a hint of orangey brown and was very sweet. Behind the initial condensed milk burst there was burned caramel and a creamy mouthfeel. A good set up for the day.

Salopian Shropshire Gold – moving on to my normal style of beer for the festival, a solid golden ale with citrus hops throughout and a floral hop hint on the finish. The deal is that normally I drink the golden beers and Bob has the dark ones. Unfortunately for Bob I also rather like the dark beers and he’s not much of a fan of the golden ones…

Nottingham Rock Ale Mild – a dry dark mild with a biscuity/nutty character.

Highland Dark Munro – an intense dark chocolate malt to start, fading to a sweeter mid. It looks and smells dark and heavy, but is much lighter and more quaffable than it looks.

Arbor Oyster Stout – totally opaque with a rich stouty nose. Very bitter indeed with burned coffee grounds, but became creamy after some time sitting in the glass.

Amber Chocolate Orange – Very chocolatey and orangey on the nose but not so much on the flavour – dark malt and a hint of cocoa.

Ashover Liquorice Alesort – dark and bitter with a slight liquorice astringency and sweetness in the finish.

Ballards Golden Bine – a dry golden ale with a hint of grapefruit.

Purity Gold – rounded, golden and hoppy.

Blindmans Golden Spring – a musty, dry golden ale.

Milestone Raspberry Wheat – a pleasantly sour raspberry beer. Light and refreshing with a bitter finish.

Vale Black Beauty Porter – A dark porter with a graing heavy flavour – maybe even a hint of wheatiness? Bread fading to a bitter finish.

Iceni Fen Tiger – I normally know Iceni from trying to taste their Raspberry Wheat beer each year, only to find that it had sold out. I finally tasted it last year and didn’t like it, so was quite please to try one of their others. This was a very fresh citrusy pint with the coriander in the brew adding only popping in the finish – rather nice.

Breconshire Ysbrid y Ddraig – we think this is ‘Spirit of the Dragon’ and it’s a whisky cask aged beer. Lots of whisky on the nose leading to fruit and smoke to taste. Really interesting and worth it’s bronze medal in the speciality beer category.

Hogs Back Slovenian Rhapsody – smelled of cabbagey farts and tasted of lemony sweat. Maybe not one for everybody…

Bob’s Brewing Chardonayle – thick and syrupy to start leading to a hint of citrusy hops to finish.

Cannon Royall Fruiterer’s Mild – Fruity smell – almost like making a fruit cup with beer (Pimm’s but not Pimm’s…). Maybe a hint of ham. Buttery mouthfeel with fruity malt.

Arran Dark – thick and malty with a hint of fruit and a very dry finish.

Fuller’s Brewers Reserve #2 – the scarce beer of the festival, with only one or two barrels going on each day – the second release of their oak cask aged barley wine, on tap rather than in bottles like usual. There was a 15 minute queue on Wednesday evening when I got to it and all in all they served 216 1/3rd pints in 45 minutes before it was all gone. I’m not sure if it was worth the wait but it was quite tasty – a bit like Golden Pride but with a bit of vanilla and smoke from the barrel aging, thick with malt and fruit. It was smoother and less alcoholic tasting than Golden Pride is on tap and definitely one to try if you see it without too much of a queue…

Forge Hartland Blonde – dry golden ale with strong bitter hops and a touch of nuttiness.

Goachers Fine Light Ale – a beer made just down the road from my old school and one that I used to see, if the romantic memory isn’t a false one, delivered in a hlaf-timbered Morris Traveller. This was a deep golden light ale with a touch of hops and biscuits.

Rogue St Rogue Red – I started the second day similarly to my first, with a trip to the USA bar. This one was very cloudy, although I was assured that was fine, and reddy brown. It smelled of dry hop pellets and was sweet, quickly travelling through thick maltiness to a bitter hoppy finish. A refreshing start to the day.

Schlenkerla Rauchbier Märzen – a beer that I know I like and obtained for Bob because he asked for something ‘smoky’. This was a new barrel and rather lively, with the glass when I took it away containing 1/3rd of a pint of beer and 2/3rds of foam. It settled down into a generous half, with an ungenerous half a pint of foam on top, and was exactly what you’d expect – overpoweringly smoky with bacon and a sweetcorn sweetness. It’s a bit smoother and less fizzy on cask (despite the foamy head) and definitely worth a try whenever it appears.

Whitewater Crown and Glory – chosen at it was the Northern Irish beer I could see. Crisp and biscuity with a light hoppiness.

Townhouse Flowerdew – my terse tasting note says ‘Grapefruit’.

St Peter’s Grapefruit – by coincidence this one was bought at the same time as the Flowerdew (and not mixed up – it was my round and I made sure) and my equally terse tasting note says ‘Grapefruity’. I really like this beer – it’s got a strong grapefruit flavour to it, with the mouth puckering sourness sanded away by the underlying wheat beer. It’s one I always grab when I see it on.

Stewarts Edinburgh No. 3 – an old fashioned malty best bitter, with a chunk of musty sweetness.

Saltaire Triple Chocolate – the most chocolatey of the chocolate beers I’ve tried, although significantly lighter than you might think. In the end it reminded us all of a dark chocolate mousse.

Thornbridge Jaipur – a big chunk of citrus hoppiness with a central malty sweetness and a bitter finish. A solid and rather tasty IPA.

Thornbridge Craven Silk – one of the most interesting beers I tried at the festival, with a finishing flavour that I couldn’t identify until I read the tasting notes – elderflower. However, rather than the usual sweet syrup elderflower that is sometimes added to beers this was a sour and floral flavour that really added to the overall taste.

Thwaites Nutty Black – a mild that tastes very strongly of hazelnuts.

Adur Black William – a dry dark beer with both bitter chocolate malt and dark chocolate.

Blue Monkey BG Sips – Thick with citrus hops and a syrupy sweetness. One I tried to get a couple of times and was rather pleased to eventually get a taste of, although it did almost taste as if they’d stopped it brewing a bit early.

Fyne Jarl – A refreshing golden ale that my notes just list as ‘Lemon biscuits’. Really tasty.

Camerons 6th Sense – Big sweet fizzy malt with a thick mouth feel.

Amnesia Desolation IPA – my  last beer, so I ran over to the American bar to find that they only had 3 beers left on – the Rogue from earlier, Sierra Nevada Porter (nice, but I’ve had it on cask before) and this. It wasn’t bad – charred malt, light hops and a rounded smoothness.

Jacobi Original Bitter – Bob’s last beer and the last one I tried – it was for both of us the worst of the festival. A touch of citrus but overwhelmed with a stale sweaty flavour. Not good.

I then ran away via the Real Ale in a Bottle bar (where I’d worked the day beforehand – I managed to grab one of the last bottles of Chocolate Marble then, as well as the almost as popular Marble Lagonda IPA [which I have waiting in the fridge], both of which sold out by Friday), where I picked up an Otley O8 and a Harveys Double Imperial Stout, and the USA bottled beer bar, where I grabbed a Rogue Morimoto Soba Ale and a Shipyard XXXX IPA. They are now sitting on the side waiting for an excuse to be drunk…

A good festival and I will, of course be returning next year.

There’s a complete list of all the beers that they had on at the festival, with ABVs and tasting notes, over on the GBBF website.

I will, naturally, be writing overly wordily and obsessively about the festival later this week, but for now suffice to say that I’m going to be there on Wednesday and Friday afternoons, having a few beverages, and will be working there during the day on Thursday. If you are around and want to say hello please ping me on twitter or drop a comment here if you want to meet up for a swift half. Or five.

Tickets are available on the door for £8 for CAMRA members and £10 for non-members. There’s a £2 discount if you buy online in advance (although they charge a £1 transaction fee per order, no matter how many tickets you buy) and you can print your tickets out or pick them up on the door.

As with many of the random mainland European beers that I’ve tried, I first found this at a beer festival, with it being jammed into my hands by a very enthusiastic chap at the Ealing Beer on Broadway festival a few years back. I’d heard of rauchbier from some of my more continentally versed compatriots and was keen to try the mystical ‘bacon beer’ that they described.

The beer is brewed in Bamberg in Germany by the Brauerei Heller, although my looking online suggests that most people simply refer to them as the Schlenkerla brewery after their brewpub in the centre of town. The beer’s distinctly smoky flavour comes from the smoked malt, dried over open fires burning beech logs. They have three varieties of smoked beer, also serving a weizen and a bock, as well as an unsmoked helles (which I tried by accident this year at the GBBF – it was rather nice, with a hint of smokiness to it that Wikipedia informs me is due to the brewing process happening in a building surrounded by smoky malt), although the Aecht Rauchbier is the only one that I’ve found in the UK with any regularity. The smoking of the malt used to be a side-effect of the drying process, before kiln drying took over in those places where drying the malt in the sun was not quite as regularly possible as needed, and Bamberg is one of the last places that use the flavour as the distinguishing mark of the local beers.

Flavour-wise it’s quite an eye opener – a dark, lightly carbonated beer that is quickly overwhelmed by flavours of woodsmoke. The smokiness lingers and tends, in my opinion, more to the sweet end of things with hints of sweetcorn in addition to smoked ham and maltiness. It’s definitely more savoury over all, but with a vanilla edge at the back of the tongue. The thing that surprises me most is its lightness – while it’s not a crisp lightly flavoured drink, it’s definitely lighter than the heavily smoked smell and flavour at first suggest. It reminds me of the crispness of Asahi Black and some of the flavour of Budvar Dark with a can of corn (drained) blended in. I suspect that with its strong flavour but lightness it’d compliment food well, adding a distinct extra element to similar flavours in stews and casseroles heavy enough to battle the smokiness. Just the sort of thing they serve in The Schlenkerla in Bamberg…

I found it on tap at this year’s GBBF, after my accidental grabbing of the Helles, and while it wasn’t poured from an oak barrel as it is in Bamberg it was fantastic – less fizzy and thus with a slightly thicker and heavier taste. Both my drinking buddy and his dad took home beermats with my drunkenly scrawled “Schlenkerla” on, promising that it was on their list of things to keep in the fridge. It’s most definitely not for everyone and not one for all night (unless you’re in Bamberg), but as an occasional treat it’s filling, tasty and strangely moreish.

Aecht Shlenkerla Rauchbier
Smoked beer from Bamberg. 5.1%
Available from specialist beer shops and some branches of Tesco – list available on their website
I got mine from Utobeer in Borough Market