A Cat And An Owl In A Boat

It has been an exceptionally busy weekend starting with Thursday evening and our visit to the CAMRA Leeds Beer Festival, which takes place every year Pudsey Town Hall. Over the last few years, this hasn't clashed with the Leeds Meet weekend but unfortunately this year it coincided again, making planning things difficult. We usually go with a few friends but with Saturday ruled out due to the Meet and Friday ruled out due to the need to get up for the meet, Thursday was the only real day we could do. The problem there was that Thursday was also the day of my annual review at work and so I had to be in the office, necessitating an early start and a scramble back to make the Festival. In one regard, this was quite fortunate though as we have been losing weight recently and the next month presents a serious hazard to this goal. Furthermore, what with work on the Friday, a heavy night drinking probably wouldn't be advisable and as a consequence we decided to go to the Festival later and try just a couple of beers. This decision was aided by the fact that one of Wolfie's colleagues, Adam, also wanted to come and he couldn't get out of work until after 8pm due to being on late support.

I thought that the Festival was going to be busy and deliberately avoided the 6-7:30pm period due to the usual long queues but as we approached the venue, we could see through the windows that the place was quite sparsely populated. On approaching the front desk, we waltzed straight in (it being free for CAMRA members) and talking to the grizzled old men manning the glass and token area, they admitted that numbers were quite down. I heard from someone who went to the Friday session that this was the same there, so I am a little concerned about the future viability of the event. Hopefully this year it was just a case of poorer advertising but at least it allowed us to secure a seat, not to mention being served beer far more easily. I was delighted to see more craft beer styles coming through, particularly through the new key cask system which is ideal for the delivery of cask based beers through a keg. I spent a lot of time at this top bar, not to mention digging out some ales which had been brewed by and with some of my favourite Brewers. A collaboration called A Chockwork Orange between a small Sheffield Brewer and the BrewDog bar there was probably my highlight but the Brass Castle beers were also pleasant. They had changed the layout of the bars this year, with key cask and international beers upstairs so this is where we stayed for most of the night, on the row of chairs in one of the corridors overlooking a coat hanger and an evacuation chair. This allowed us to chat more easily, away from the loud covers band playing downstairs.

We had some delicious pork pie and mushy peas with added mint sauce on entry while Adam turned up about half an hour later and offered us a sample of all this beers too. Wolfie and I were drinking in two third measures, swapping halfway through, so this enabled us to try a number of different beers without going too mad. The theme was the Leeds-Liverpool canal so there were many interesting beers from breweries in towns along the route. I also bought a couple of interesting bottles from the international beer stand upon exiting the event. As we only had three hours there, we were reasonably disciplined, drinking just under four pints each in total, meaning we didn't leave the venue completely wasted like usual. Last year I was a bit drunk on my way home - running behind some poor bloke with a child's toy I had found while saying "come back I'm a nice guy really" - but this year we had a nice chat with an 18-year-old Irish student whose first ever visit to a beer festival this had been. They dipped into ASDA for some food and we ended up with a rather threatening man carrying a sideways pizza but he soon took off, allowing us to walk back with Adam before heading back to the house reasonably sober but after a rather good experience.

I think we timed it right this year, going just for a few hours and enjoying some but nowhere near all of the beers on offer. I feel pretty comfortable from a weight perspective and the walk there and back allowed me to burn about one third of the calories I consumed including dinner. We were also not particularly drunk and I imagine fate pushing us to doing the same again next year as I think it'll clash with the meet again. The only concern was the small attendance, I hope it doesn't put the festival in jeopardy. In all honestly I wasn't too fussed about going before the event as real ale really isn't my thing but there definitely does seem to be an embracing of some craft breweries and so I do hope it continues. I'll be back next year certainly, even if it is just a fleeting visit.