I mentioned in the comments on my recent article about this year's Great British Beer Festival, that I was in the process of drafting a post about beer festivals. This would primarily be about my feelings towards festivals, and how these feelings have changed over the years.In the process of writing this post I found that I was constantly being drawn back to GBBF, and how that event had changed over the past four and a half decades. So without further ado, here is my own personal take on that enduring institution that is the Great British Beer Festival.
I'm pretty sure I'm correct in crediting CAMRA for introducing beer festivals to this country. I'm also fairly certain that the idea for such events came from Germany, where there is a long tradition of festivals involving the consumption of copious amounts of beer. If I'm wrong with these assumptions, then please let me know.
The very first beer festival organised by CAMRA was the Cambridge Beer Festival. which took place in 1974. The event is also the longest continuously running event in Britain; although it has moved site three times. The Kent Beer Festival, at Canterbury probably comes second in the longevity stakes, but again that event has had several changes of venue.
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| Andreas Praefcke [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0) |
I would say that in terms of timing, CAMRA's first national festival comes in third. Billed as a “Beer Exhibition,” rather than a beer festival, the event which soon became known as the Great British Beer Festival, took place at the then recently vacated old flower market in London's Covent Garden, in September 1975. The event was an unqualified success and, as well as encouraging individual CAMRA branches to run their own beer festivals, Covent Garden was directly responsible for subsequent national ones.
It was the event which everyone remembers, and I count myself fortunate to have been there; even if it was only for one session. On that sole visit I was like a kid in a sweet shop, with all these beers available for me to try. Thanks to CAMRA's first Good Beer Guide I’d read about some of them, and now was my opportunity to try a few.
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| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexandra_Palace_from_air_2009_.jpg |
There's not a lot I can report about Covent Garden, apart from the old flower stalls being used as make-shift stillages, and the drains and gulleys in the concrete floor. In addition, quite a lot of the beers were dispensed from wooden casks.
The session I attended was on Friday afternoon, and quite a few of the customers were office workers, still in their suits, who had popped out for a crafty lunchtime pint. My friends and I returned the following evening, but with the queue stretching right round the block showing no sign of moving, we adjourned to the nearby Marquess of Anglesea.
The first Great British Beer Festival took place in 1977, at Alexandra Palace in north London. I remember going to the festival and climbing up the hill to Ally Pally, after getting off the train at the nearby station, but don't remember that much about the event itself. I'm fairly certain I attended a couple of other subsequent festivals at Alexandra Palace, but I was definitely there for the 1980 festival, which was held under canvas, in tents, after Ally Pally burned down.
I also went to the majority of the events held at the Brighton Metropole. This venue hosted the festival during the mid 1980's, which was handy for those of us living in West Kent. There would normally be a half dozen or so of us travelling down to Brighton by train, taking the line from Tonbridge to Redhill and then changing onto the mainline. We combined a day at the seaside with some serious beer sampling, and in the days before all day drinking was allowed, the compulsory closed period during the afternoon, provided the opportunity for fish & chips on the seafront followed by some fooling around on the dodgems. 
There was no festival in 1984, as Bingley Hall in Birmingham, the venue due to hold the event, burned to the ground. Coming just four years after Alexandra Palace suffered a similar fate the fire prompted comments about the “curse of CAMRA.”
At the beginning of the 1980's, and also at the end of the decade, the Great British Beer Festival was held at the Queen's Hall in Leeds, but given the distances involved and the fact I wasn't that committed to the event, I never attended any of the festivals held in Leeds or the ones which took place in Birmingham.
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| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:London_Arena-_C_Ford.jpg |
The festival returned to London in 1991, when the event was held at the Dockland's Arena. This was a short-lived concert, sports and exhibition centre on the Isle of Dogs. The venue was totally unsuitable for an event like GBBF, and I remember my friends and I coming away feeling very disappointed. From memory the Arena was in financial trouble, and there were problems regarding the food and other concessions, so I was not really surprised to learn that the venue was demolished for housing in 2006, after an existence of just 17 years.
The following year, the festival moved to Olympia which in many ways, seemed the ideal venue, although perhaps not as far as the beer was concerned. In those days, Olympia lacked air-conditioning so the whole structure, which basically resembles an enormous greenhouse, used to heat up like a hothouse, as soon as the sun put in an appearance. Despite the best efforts of the “cellar staff” the temperature of the beer was often far from ideal.
The installation of a decent air-conditioning system, finally solved the problem, and with the temperature under control Olympia became the ideal venue for GBBF. Bright, airy and now super-cool as well, it was a pleasure just walking around, seeing what was on offer and deciding which beers to sample next.Several year later though, the event moved to nearby Earls Court, whilst refurbishment work was carried out at Olympia. Earls Court was the worst venue ever, as far as I was concerned, as it was like drinking in a underground carpark. There were no windows, and therefore no natural light, and the combination of concrete and artificial lighting, meant one left the festival with aching feet and an equally aching head, regardless of how much or how little beer one had supped. After just two visits, I refused to attend subsequent festivals, as I detested Earls Court that much.
In 2012, after six years at that "other place", the Great British Beer Festival returned to Olympia, where it remains to this day. It was good to see the festival back at this iconic venue, even though in recent years, I've had mixed feelings about the event.As stated at the beginning of this article, I'll be writing a separate post about how my feelings about beer festivals have changed over the years, but I'm pleased to have been able to witness the Great British Beer Festival change from something just cobbled together in an abandonned old flower market, to the slick, professional and highly polished event it is today.
6 comments:
That was a fascinating retrospective Paul.
It's nice to be reminded that there was actually something pleasant, here and there, during the 1980s.
Cheers,
E
Brew Britannia (Boak & Bailey) has some interesting background on the origins of the GBBF and it does seem that some (or all?) of the bars were run at the first event by breweries, which I assume was the original German model. I had a look at the Oktoberfest once in the early 80s and each of the local breweries ('outsiders' being excluded) had a tent where if you could find a seat, you sat down and had a litre of whatever they were serving plonked down in front of you. To try a beer from a different brewery, you had to go and find a seat in another tent. The Berlin event is also organised by having bars run by the participating breweries, but in this case set out along a main road. This does make the event more like a typical trade exhibition, which could account for initially calling the GBBF an exhibition. I also haven't been to the GBBF for years but with the number of brewery bars creeping up, there could be something of a return to the German model.
Glad you enjoyed my nostalgic look-back at Britain’s premier beer festival, Etu. There’s more to come in the next article.
Ian, brewery bars are now quite common at GBBF, but I’m certain this wasn’t always the case. As someone who attended the two original events - Covent Garden and the first GBBF at Alexandra Palace, I don’t recall there being any brewery-sponsored bars at either. I also flicked through my copy of Boak & Bailey’s “Brew Britannia,” and found no reference to this, so I’m intrigued as to where this assumption came from.
Like you, I have been to Oktoberfest and it really is a case all on its own. I plan to write about it in more detail, in my next article on beer festivals. The Berlin Festival is a fairly recent event. I haven’t been, but it sounds interesting.
No cut and paste this time. :)
I agree with Etu; a nice look back at how things were, or have changed.
I think the way we reminisce has to do with time and technology. Time because, as you said, we were younger back then (e.g. a skinful had less effect) and technology because, for example, back then you didn't have a world of beer at your fingertips as it were. Now we have phone apps such as Whatpub and Untappd as well as various guides on line. It's not as adventurous as it used to be, partly because we're older or we have easier access.
I just noticed that Michael Jackson's GBBF show was the one in Leeds in either '88 or '89, and I have to admit the layout inside didn't look all that appealing. :)
I still enjoy trying different beers (I think I always will) but the time and place for such things has evolved over time. Right now I'm quite happy to have no more than 7 different beers in my fridge. But, if I ever went back to visit my brother in northern France (a stone's throw from Belgium) we'd be off to the nearby beer warehouse in Belgium every second day to pick up a smorgasbord of beers to sample in the comfort of his home. :)
Cheers
My reference to Brew Britannia was to page 49 where there is a sentence "Some breweries had also erected painted wooden signs at the ends of their 'bars' ". I read into this that the breweries concerned were operating those bars, but obviously this was a misinterpretation. As I didn't attend the early events (81 or 82 being my first) I can't claim any first hand knowledge of them. In September 1975 I would still have been in Lancashire doing a summer job to supplement my student grant so a jaunt down to London just for beer drinking wouldn't have seemed a good idea anyway, at least in cost terms.
Ian, I too was a student back in 1975 and whilst I was studying at Salford University, my parents lived in Kent. I visited the Covent Garden with a friend from London, who was also a student at Salford. He was from London, and from memory we spent the weekend at his father’s house in Barking. Shortly after, we would have travelled back up to Salford, for the start of the new term.
With regard to the brewery signs, there are a number of heavily copy-righted photos available to view on Google Images. They were taken at the time by a professional photographer, and provide a fascinating look back at the Covent Garden event. There are several brewery signs visible; notably Home Ales and Samuel Smiths. There is also a Brain’s banner hanging from the roof.
What is interesting is that the Sam Smith’s signage seems to be directly behind the stand selling their beers, as evidenced by the wooden casks. Now I distinctly remember contraptions known as “cask-pumps” being used to dispense the Sam Smith beers. These were like miniature hand-pumps, which fitted directly onto the cask taps. These pumps produced a tight creamy head on the beer, of the type so beloved by Yorkshiremen, and my feeling is that it was the brewery themselves who supplied these devices. It’s therefore possible that Sam Smith’s did provided some form of support, but it’s such a long time ago now, that it’s hard to know one way or the other.
Going back to your original comment concerning brewery bars, whist I can see this making financial sense for CAMRA, there is the argument that by allowing these types if bars, the Campaign is seen as endorsing certain brewers’ beers above those of others, thereby losing some of its impartiality.
I don’t personally go along with this, although I expect there are plenty of people who do. In the end, it boils down to practicalities, money and ethics; things which aren’t always mutually compatible.
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