Great British Beer Festival - Olympia

It was our first ever chance last week to visit the GBBF whilst on a theatre trip to London. Olympia is a huge venue but it's well laid out and there's plenty of room for everyone on the ground floor, where the beer and stalls are, and there's lots of seating, both downstairs and on the large 4-sided balcony/mezzanine on the first floor.

We hadn't booked tickets beforehand but just paid cash on the door. There were no queues, but it was only Wednesday evening - it might have been worth booking in advance at the weekend. They sell premium priced tickets to avoid the queues, so I guess there must be a need.

CAMRA members get a £2 discount from the standard £12 entry fee, but you still have to pay for your glass after that - either a full pint, half or one-third. Each costs a deposit of £3, which you get back when you leave - or you can just keep it.

It's a cash bar after that - most beers are priced around £1.10 for one-thirds of a pint, £1.70 for a half pint and £3.50 for a pint. There were a dozen themed real ale sections:

• Apollo
• Lode Lane
• Livingstone
• There and Back Again
• Pioneer
• Sextant
• Enterprise
• End of the Rainbow
• Bell & Compasses
• James Cook
• Kon-Tiki
• Howard Carter

Most of these each had 28 beers available and were grouped alphabetically by geographical area - i.e. Glasgow, Glamorgan etc. In addition to these bays, there were 7 brewery bars:

• Brains
• Shepherd Neame
• Charles Wells
• Fuller's
• Harvey's
• Wadworth
• Hog's Back

plus a SIBA Bar at which there were 8 ales, including Fyne Ales' Sublime Stout.

There was also another 2 sections for Cider & Perry, with over 100 selections available. There was also a huge selection of international beers, under the title of Bieres Sans Frontieres, sub-divided in to 4 sections:

• Leif Ericson (Czech & German), which Jim Strang was in charge of
• Magellan (Belgian, Dutch & Italian)
• Christopher Columbus (USA & RoW bottled beer)
• Pilgrimage (USA cask beers)

There were well over 300 beers available in all formats in this international section.

Merchandising stalls, games and loads of food stalls as well.

Between the three of us who were drinking ale, we managed to taste just 17 beers:

• Green Jack - Trawlerboys Best Bitter
• Greene King - Ale O'ha
• Olde Swan - Netherton Pale Ale
• Harvey's - Wild Hop
• Maxim - Lambton's
• Pinup - Session IPA
• Barlow - Beyond the Pale
• Gyle 59 - Mighty Hops Happy Daze
• Cross Bay - Nightfall
• Allendale - GFPA
• Nene Valley - Dick's Extraordinary Bitter
• North Riding (Brew Pub) - Peasholm Pale Ale
• Phipps NBC - Phipps IPA
• Walls - Gun Dog Bitter
• White Horse - Bitter
• Brains - The Rev James Original
• Severn Vale - Nibley Ale

The only listed beer that was sold out was Highland's Scapa Special - a common feature at festivals, it seems.

We never got the opportunity to attend any of the Tutored Tastings - I would especially have liked to have gone to Pete Brown's Beer and Music session, but it was on Friday night and we were gone by then.

Great fun, however and well worth a visit. Here's some photos from Wednesday night: