I was in Scotland last weekend for the annual European Summer gathering of ratebeer. This is a community that usually meets through the web site, but some of us see each other while travelling, and the most eager ones meet for this event in the summer.So, the host city this year was Glasgow, and it was certainly a nice city to go to. There will be another blog post about Glasgow as a drinking city where I make my usual biased opinions based on scant empirical evidence and the most cursory experience as a participant observer, never fear. I will just mention that it is a city with a splendid range of pubs old and new, and there are new cask ales, often from Scottish breweries, in many of these establishments. The natives are friendly, even if you’ll be lucky to grasp only half of what they say to you, and the central part of the city is easy to navigate.
Being a family man, who’s already spent my holidays with my family, means that I did not attend the whole programme of the event, which included pub crawls in both Edinburgh and Glasgow. I arrived on Friday evening for a nice series of draught beers at a few pubs, including the excellent Blackfriars, which means that I was reasonably fit for the main event of the weekend, the Grand Tasting.
This took place in the basement of the Blackfriars, and going on from Saturday noon until nine in the evening. It basically means that everyone brings beer along in generous quantities. This could be local beers, new beers, rare beers, aged beers – even good beers.
With about 20 participants, this means that there were more than 100 beers available. As the bottles are opened, a few at the time, they are passed around. With some of the there are some words about the beer or the brewery from the ones who brought them along, but generally there are people chatting and having a good time.There were participants from a number of countries including the England, Scotland, the Czech Republic, Canada and Scandinavia. Some have English cask ales as their favourite, some prefer the Belgian gueze, and some want American style super hopped beer. There was something for everyone. I was happy to bring along some rare beers from Panil in Italy as well as some Norwegian rarities.
This was all very jolly, but as the hours wore on, some of us had second thoughts. We would never consider tasting more than 50 beers at a sitting anywhere else. And as you drink dozens of beers, your mouth numbs – are you really a good judge of the subtle flavours of a mild if that is beer number 42?
Don’t get me wrong, there were not enormous amounts of alcohol being swilled down during the event. We had small samples of most of the beers, and with solid food served twice, the congregation stayed remarkably sober. But the sheer number of bottles passing by at high speed was overwhelming.I took a break in mid afternoon. I went for a walk, looking at the Saturday shoppers. I found a book shop which had both No Depression magazine and a few tartan noir crime books. I had a cappuccino and a few muffins. I bought a few beers to take home. And then I returned, refreshed, for a last leg of the tasting.
This is not meant as criticism of the event at all, more a reflection that it sometimes can get too much for some of the more grumpy and elderly of us. I love the camaraderie of this crowd, which consists mainly of adults, quite a few of the greying kind like me. People are generous and including and have a wealth of knowledge about beers and brewing, far beyond my dabbling in the field.
Since this is my soap box, I know how I would want it another year:
First of all, I should give priority to the other parts of the programme, attending pub crawls, brewery visits etc, which is what I really prefer. Then I’d get to try more of the local cask ale as well.
What could be done about the tasting is to make a loose plan for which bottles should be opened when. The beers could be grouped according to style or brewery/country or origin. Then everyone could come and go a bit more relaxed, without being afraid of missing particular beers they are eager to try.
The highlights of the tasting? Probably the local Brew Dog beers - the brewers actually turned up for the event. They have the most amazing barrel aged beers, which will probably be the Next Big Thing. Their beers are avilable by mail order in the UK.
I also loved the beers from Dugges in Gothenburg, Sweden, which we visited last year. Some of the aged beers were also great stuff, very interesting to try.Thanks a lot to Tom and Gareth for organizing the event. They should not be surprised if I turn up in Glasgow some time within a year or so to tour the pubs I missed! I didn't have any deep fried Mars bars, either....