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lupestripeIt has been an incredibly busy weekend - the last weekend of decadence before a few weeks of relative sobriety. It's needed really after Eurofurence and Wolfie's birthday, with the festivities continuing with the Seventh Annual Leeds International Beer Festival which again took place during the second weekend of September. Again at the Town Hall, this is one of the highlights of the year for us, and as usual we decided to go to both the Friday and Saturday evening sessions. I was quite fearful of getting out on time on the Friday, what with us being incredibly stretched at work, but after the sacrifices I had made earlier in the week which saw me miss the coffee meet, I put my foot down and insisted on leaving shortly before 5pm. This I managed to do, despite a few rough moments during the afternoon, and I was delighted to discover that I was the very first in the queue for the 6-11pm session having arrived a full fifty-five minutes early. The security lady on the door was somewhat surprised by my keeness and indeed I was the only one in the queue for the next fifteen minutes before an American couple decided to join me. Wolfie was traditionally late, having missed the bus and thus having to get a taxi, while it was also a pleasure to see Brett as I waited. Alas, the people behind me didn't look overly keen on my friends pushing in line, so it was to the back of the queue that they would have to go, but once we were let in, at least the people dispersed pretty quickly so we didn't have too much time alone.
While waiting, I did get chatting to the Americans, who told me that they represented one of the breweries on the Maine Beer Truck. This was a neat new venture for LIBF as seventy-eight beers had been transported on a container from the US's most north-easterly state for them to be served at the festival. Once this had been done, local Yorkshire brewers would reciprocate for a major beer festival in Portland in mid-November. It's a really fantastic idea as it enables you to sample a range of different beers from a faraway source, and thus one you are unlikely to find locally. With a range of breweries unknown to me and needing to make a beeline somewhere before nabbing one of the few seats in the seating area, I followed his recommendation of trying his own brew and this turned out to be a wise move. The truck upon which the Maine beers were served were crammed full of American bar staff, perhaps suggesting they had somewhat overestimated how big the beer festival was, but we did our best to support the venture, sampling fifteen of the seventy-eight beers over the course of the two nights. We also managed to try a range of other great beers too, focusing predominatly on the US, New Zealand and European stuff as we could try the UK varieties another time. However, with Brett being with us on the Friday evening, we thought it silly not to listen to his recommendations on the exciting new brews coming out of the British scene so we let him guide us for three or four, even if they were all predominantly 13-14% strength. However, we didn't get too wankered on both nights, largely because we had a booze absorbing parmo burger from the excellent Parm Star to kick the night off on both occasions, while we did noticeably slow down the drinking on the Friday as we did need to be up on the Saturday morning. However, Friday was definitely more a social affair as not only was Brett with us, but our friend Stray too, who had felt a little bummed after missing Wolfie's birthday due to illness. Indeed, he booked his LIBF ticket the night of his birthday and it was great to give Wolfie a rather belated good time considering how down he was that no-one had turned up to the rock night.
The Saturday was more drink-fuelled, as it often tends to be. Wolfie and I were alone, meaning we had less to distract us, while as this was our last night, it was also our last chance to try as many of the beers as possible. We tried thirty-five over the two nights in the end, with us attempting to sample two beers from each new brewery. This saw us pick things from Edge and Basqueland from Spain as well as Lervig from Denmark and Porterhouse from Ireland. Fortunately, a number of stands had some bottles/cans to take away, such as Porterhouse, meaning we could try their beers away from the beer festival too, thus boosting the numbers. While Friday was definitely a more social day, we ended up just staying outside on the porch, watching the sun go down over the magistrates court. It was colder and rainier on the Saturday though so we decided to go for a change of scenery, getting accosted by a kolsch salesman in one of the corridors and settling in the basement European bar area where we felt quite at home. Indeed, the only thing of note that I did on Friday was have a lengthy conversation with the Tiny Rebel crew who gave me the dregs of their Imperial Chocolate Puft as they could no longer serve me and the Sikh guys at Raynville who again sold us some incredible beer. We really shoupld pop to their store more often.
In the end then, it was one of the greatest beer festivals yet and we had an awful lot of fun over the two nights. Due to events taking place in the daytime, we did try and remain sensible and did go for some post-drink food from Pudsey's local takeaways before heading home. Our usual pizza place was flooded so we had to go to the dodgier curry place around the corner but it was pleasant enough and it did set us up rather nicely for our other plans for the weekend. Due to this, alas, there were no after parties for us but I think we had more than enough to drink to compensate and indeed I think now is the time for a teetotal week or two although in all honesty I can't wait for the next big beer festival in a few months' time.
While waiting, I did get chatting to the Americans, who told me that they represented one of the breweries on the Maine Beer Truck. This was a neat new venture for LIBF as seventy-eight beers had been transported on a container from the US's most north-easterly state for them to be served at the festival. Once this had been done, local Yorkshire brewers would reciprocate for a major beer festival in Portland in mid-November. It's a really fantastic idea as it enables you to sample a range of different beers from a faraway source, and thus one you are unlikely to find locally. With a range of breweries unknown to me and needing to make a beeline somewhere before nabbing one of the few seats in the seating area, I followed his recommendation of trying his own brew and this turned out to be a wise move. The truck upon which the Maine beers were served were crammed full of American bar staff, perhaps suggesting they had somewhat overestimated how big the beer festival was, but we did our best to support the venture, sampling fifteen of the seventy-eight beers over the course of the two nights. We also managed to try a range of other great beers too, focusing predominatly on the US, New Zealand and European stuff as we could try the UK varieties another time. However, with Brett being with us on the Friday evening, we thought it silly not to listen to his recommendations on the exciting new brews coming out of the British scene so we let him guide us for three or four, even if they were all predominantly 13-14% strength. However, we didn't get too wankered on both nights, largely because we had a booze absorbing parmo burger from the excellent Parm Star to kick the night off on both occasions, while we did noticeably slow down the drinking on the Friday as we did need to be up on the Saturday morning. However, Friday was definitely more a social affair as not only was Brett with us, but our friend Stray too, who had felt a little bummed after missing Wolfie's birthday due to illness. Indeed, he booked his LIBF ticket the night of his birthday and it was great to give Wolfie a rather belated good time considering how down he was that no-one had turned up to the rock night.
The Saturday was more drink-fuelled, as it often tends to be. Wolfie and I were alone, meaning we had less to distract us, while as this was our last night, it was also our last chance to try as many of the beers as possible. We tried thirty-five over the two nights in the end, with us attempting to sample two beers from each new brewery. This saw us pick things from Edge and Basqueland from Spain as well as Lervig from Denmark and Porterhouse from Ireland. Fortunately, a number of stands had some bottles/cans to take away, such as Porterhouse, meaning we could try their beers away from the beer festival too, thus boosting the numbers. While Friday was definitely a more social day, we ended up just staying outside on the porch, watching the sun go down over the magistrates court. It was colder and rainier on the Saturday though so we decided to go for a change of scenery, getting accosted by a kolsch salesman in one of the corridors and settling in the basement European bar area where we felt quite at home. Indeed, the only thing of note that I did on Friday was have a lengthy conversation with the Tiny Rebel crew who gave me the dregs of their Imperial Chocolate Puft as they could no longer serve me and the Sikh guys at Raynville who again sold us some incredible beer. We really shoupld pop to their store more often.
In the end then, it was one of the greatest beer festivals yet and we had an awful lot of fun over the two nights. Due to events taking place in the daytime, we did try and remain sensible and did go for some post-drink food from Pudsey's local takeaways before heading home. Our usual pizza place was flooded so we had to go to the dodgier curry place around the corner but it was pleasant enough and it did set us up rather nicely for our other plans for the weekend. Due to this, alas, there were no after parties for us but I think we had more than enough to drink to compensate and indeed I think now is the time for a teetotal week or two although in all honesty I can't wait for the next big beer festival in a few months' time.
