Check out this web site for J.D.Weatherspoon. It’s a fun site that shows what’s going on regarding real ales etc. It also talks about American Micro brewers being invited by Weatherspoon to brew beers in England for his pubs. http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/
Welcome to J D Wetherspoon, Award-Winning Pubs
http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/J D Wetherspoon
Our award-winning pubs provide the very best customer experience, with superb quality, choice and value, in both food and drink. :cheers:
Good that you enjoyed the Camra real ale festival. I am from London and went to a real ale festival at Alexandra Palace in the late 70s.Prior to experiencing and appreciating good English real ale I was what was called a lager lout,but then matured a bit and saw the light! :cheers:
The Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) is an annual beer festival organised by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). It presents a selection of cask ales and other alcoholic drinks from the UK and beyond. The festival is also home to the Champion Beer of Britain awards. GBBF’s sister festival, the National Winter Ales Festival concentrates on beer styles such as porter and stout, and is held in January of each year.
GBBF is styled as the “biggest pub in the world” and offers around 450 beers from British breweries, as well as around 200 foreign beers from countries including Belgium, Germany and the USA. Traditional British cider and perry is also available. The festival is staffed by unpaid volunteers, around 1000 of whom work at the festival.
The festival is usually held during the first full week in August and runs from Tuesday to Saturday. The Tuesday afternoon session is only open to the trade and press, with the Champion Beer of Britain award winners being announced mid-afternoon. The general public are admitted to afternoon and evening sessions from Tuesday evening until Saturday evening. CAMRA figures show that in 2006, over 66,000 people visited the festival over the course of the week and consumed some 350,000 pints of beer — one pint sold in less than half of every open second. Part of the huge improvement on 2005 (ticket sales were up 40%) was attributed by the festival organiser, Marc Holmes, to the move from Olympia to Earls Court, a much larger and easily accessible venue.[1] Since 2012 the event has returned to Olympia and remains massively popular.
As well as the beer, the festival offers entertainment such as live music and traditional pub games, as well as a variety of food stands. The 2014 festival was held from 12th to 16th August. The 2015 festival is scheduled for 11th to 15th August.
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