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Ross

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Roger Protz, leading beer writer and twice winner of the prestigious Glendfiddich Drink Writer of the Year Award, has revealed to the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), his selection of must-try British beers to sample down the pub and at the forthcoming Great British Beer Festival.



The list has been whittled down from an international selection of 300 beers featured in Roger Protzs new book 300 Beers to Try Before You Die! The book is being launched in time for next weeks Great British Beer Festival, 2nd-6th August, at London Olympia.



You can't beat the conviviality of a good pub serving good beer. But the Great British Beer Festival is the biggest pub in the world! said Mr Protz. It's a brilliant showcase and snapshot of the modern British brewing industry. There's never been a greater choice for beer drinkers in Britain, with milds, bitters, porters, stouts, golden ales, old ales and barley wines. Come and revel in the remarkable choice and diversity of Britain's best beers, and why not try out some of my own personal favourites all gathered together under one roof for the first time?



Roger Protzs Top Ten Beers to Drink in British Pubs (in alphabetical order!) are:

1. Brakspear Bitter, Oxfordshire

2. B&T Edwin Taylors Stout, Bedfordshire

3. Cains Dark Mild, Liverpool

4. Crouch Vale Brewers Gold, Essex

5. Fullers ESB, London

6. Harveys Sussex Best Bitter, Sussex

7. Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted, Scotland

8. Marston's Pedigree, Burton upon Trent

9. Taylors Landlord, Keighley, Yorkshire

10. Youngs Bitter, London

At the trade show on tuesday when it opens with Kook & the ratebeer.com team - look forward to giving some feedback on the above 10 - any other tips on beers to try? Will do my best to sample all suggestions - but only 6 days - so many beers, so little time :chug:
 
Ross said:
Roger Protzs Top Ten Beers to Drink in British Pubs (in alphabetical order!) are:

1. Brakspear Bitter, Oxfordshire

2. B&T Edwin Taylors Stout, Bedfordshire

3. Cains Dark Mild, Liverpool

4. Crouch Vale Brewers Gold, Essex

5. Fullers ESB, London

6. Harveys Sussex Best Bitter, Sussex

7. Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted, Scotland

8. Marston's Pedigree, Burton upon Trent

9. Taylors Landlord, Keighley, Yorkshire

10. Youngs Bitter, London

[post="69312"][/post]​

Hmmm.... Fuller's, Marston's, Young's, Landlord... not very adventurous is he? Not that they're bad beers though.

Other suggestions:
- Dogfish Head, Stone, Victory beers from the USA
- So many good Belgians, but especially Saison d'Erpe-Mere, 't Smisje Dubbel, Kriek de Ranke, Girardin and Cantillon lambics, all the other authentic lambics, Saison d'Epautre.
- Christoffel Blond from the Netherlands
- Panil Bariquee from Italy
- I'll second the Crouch Vale and Harvey's recommendations. Also Gale's Festival Mild and Iceni Men of Norfolk (if you can find it). Be sure to try some cider too. I don't know all that much about British beers, but Dark Star and Titanic have good reputations. I'm sure Kook will have a suggestion or two... :D


Oh yeah, I'm insanely jealous too :angry: Though it's nice to daydream for a while...
 
I think you guys are missing a point. Ross is talking about the upcoming British Beer Festival (half his luck to be able to be there) and how a leading beer writer sees the event.

"Roger Protz, leading beer writer and twice winner of the prestigious Glendfiddich Drink Writer of the Year Award, has revealed to the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), his selection of must-try British beers to sample down the pub and at the forthcoming Great British Beer Festival."

My point is that Belgian and other beers are no doubt nice and are a favourite to some. However, when you are in Rome, do as the Romans do. I do not blame the British for having a British Beer Festival to advocate their best, I wish I was there.

:beer:
PeterS....
 
Malnourished said:
Hmmm.... Fuller's, Marston's, Young's, Landlord... not very adventurous is he? Not that they're bad beers though.
Well, they are all great beers one should have tried.

The list does demonstrate Protzie's London bias though - only two beers on that list would be tricky to find in the Capital or Hertfordshire.

It would be nice to see some of the terrific Westcountry breweries named, eg Cotleigh, RCH (an absolute must), Teignworthy, Skinners, Branscombe Vale, Otter, Berrow, Freeminer, Abbey, etc, etc.
 
Malnourished said:
Be sure to try some cider too.
GBBF is THE place to try some of the best farm ciders, but make sure you get advise from the bar staff on what to try and ask for a tiny sample before you commit yourself to a glassful. Tell them Sean Kelleher sent you :) (I managed the cider bar at GBBF for a few years, so most of the staff should know me.)
 
Peter Shane said:
My point is that Belgian and other beers are no doubt nice and are a favourite to some. However, when you are in Rome, do as the Romans do. I do not blame the British for having a British Beer Festival to advocate their best, I wish I was there.

While I see your point, I personally am not going to the GBBF to try British beer. Call me a traitor, but I can't get motivated about the British beer headed there!

The cask list is exceptionally boring. Every brewery is being very conservative and sending there best Bitters and Golden Ales. The strongest cask beer there is 6%!! There is a distinct lack of Porters, Stouts, Strong Ales and Milds. There are obviously a couple I want to try, but overall it's very dissapointing.

On the other hand, the foreign bar has some really amazing stuff coming over. Things you'll never see in the UK again apart from the GBBF such as Stone and various other draught US beers. Panil Bariquee is another good example.

I haven't yet seen the cider / perry list, but if it's as interesting as the Foreign list I think I'll be trying a fair bit of that too :)
 
Just had another brief skip over the cask list. There's a few I'd recommend if you havent had them before. I havent had some of them yet, so I cant say for sure whether they'll be any good, but I have high hopes:

Alcazar Ale
Milestone Black Pearl
Theakston Old Peculier *
Crouch Vale Brewers Gold *
Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted *
Falstaff Fistful of Hops
Milk Street Amarillo
Woodfordes Nelsons Revenge *
Kelham Island Pale Rider *
Dark Star Espresso Stout *
Gales Festival Mild *
Oakham JHB (Jeffrey Hudson Bitter) *
O Hanlons Original Port Stout *
Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild *
Harveys Sussex Best Bitter *
Heather Ales Fraoch Heather Ale *
Oakleaf Maypole Mild *

* Tasted and enjoyed
 
kook said:
While I see your point, I personally am not going to the GBBF to try British beer. Call me a traitor, but I can't get motivated about the British beer headed there!

The cask list is exceptionally boring. Every brewery is being very conservative and sending there best Bitters and Golden Ales.
It doesn't really affect your point, but it's not the brewers who choose which beers are represented, it's CAMRA. The brewers sometimes get some say in it, and I doubt it would change much if they did get to decide, but they don't.

The strongest cask beer there is 6%!! There is a distinct lack of Porters, Stouts, Strong Ales and Milds. There are obviously a couple I want to try, but overall it's very dissapointing.
That's because GBBF's customers are conservative. Most people attending GBBF aren't beer enthusiasts, and a high proportion aren't even normally cask beer drinkers. They are a remarkably unadventurous lot. Bier San Frontier is able to stock very small quantities of exciting beer and still keep the normal punters happy with Czech lager. Some of the exciting stuff on BSF will only be on sale for a very short period during the entire festival - perhaps just one lunchtime, say. The dynamics of BSF are VERY different to the rest of GBBF.

I haven't yet seen the cider / perry list, but if it's as interesting as the Foreign list I think I'll be trying a fair bit of that too :)
The cider bar tends to depend heavily on how much effort the manager is able to put in. It's much more of a one-man-band to organise. I managed pretty good lists, but only by being prepared to hire a van and go and get some of it myself direct from the farms.
 
Have fun Kook and Ross.

We expect photo's :lol:

Drinkers toast 200,000 pints of 'real beer'

MORE than 200,000 pints of beer are expected to be sold at the world's biggest celebration of "real beer" which begins today.

Organisers of the Great British Beer Festival at Olympia in central London expect to serve more than 600 varieties of beer to around 45,000 visitors over the next five days.

Thousands of people are expected to descend on the venue where the beer will disappear at the rate of 1.56 pints a second.

Beers,
Doc
 
We're luckly to have such learned and involved people on the forum.

Will be in London in 2 weeks time, so any thoughts on beers/pubs to try most welcome. Keep us posted with your thoughts and experiences.
 
nonicman said:
We're luckly to have such learned and involved people on the forum.

Will be in London in 2 weeks time, so any thoughts on beers/pubs to try most welcome. Keep us posted with your thoughts and experiences.
[post="69933"][/post]​

nonicman,

Drop us a pm with your uk contact details/dates & i'll happily help - Is it you & the missus, or kids as well? Give us some detail & we'll arrange a tour day.

cheers Ross
 
a pic to wet your appetite from the opening trade session, where i met Kook & some great guys from the ratebeer.com website. i'll post a heap more pics when i sober up a tad - I think I tried over 40 beers at this session, but for my sins I didn't make tasting notes - kook however, rated them all & achieved his 1000th beer rating for the ratebeer website, well done. Chris I believe has rated over 3,000, so Kook you still have a way to go...


gbbf_006.jpg

Ross, Duff, Kook, Phil, Chris,
Steve, Jens, Madsburg.

3 more days to go - it's hard work, but somebody's got to do it :D ...
 
Fantastic Ross.
I feel your pain from sampling only about 20 beers at BrewNZ last week.

You LUCKY LUCKY ******* :lol:

Keep the pics coming.
I searched for pics from GBBF 2005 this arvo, but there weren't any up yet.

Beers,
Doc
 
Tried some seriously cool beers over the last two days, including a few US beers which I've wanted to try for ages.

Weirdest was an original Old Speckled Hen from 1979. The brew made for MG to celebrate the car. Cost 50p from the collectables stand. Suprisingly after we let it breathe for a while it was actually drinkable. There was some toffee notes that showed through the oxidised sherry and prunes.

I dont have many photos, but I'll post some in a few days time :)

edit - BTW, thats Steve (tiggmtl) not Stone :)
 
nonicman said:
We're luckly to have such learned and involved people on the forum.

Will be in London in 2 weeks time, so any thoughts on beers/pubs to try most welcome. Keep us posted with your thoughts and experiences.
[post="69933"][/post]​

Personal favorites in London (now the Rose of Denmark is sadly gone):
Royal Oak, Borough (Harveys)
Wenlock, Hoxton (Free)
Churchill, Kensington Church Street (Fullers)
Priory, Stockwell (Free)
Sultan, Wimbledon (Hopback)
Lamb, Lambs Conduit Street (Youngs)
White Horse, Parsons Green (Bass, but heaps of guest beers and the most dedicated cellerman in the world)
Dove, Hammersmith (Fullers)

The Head of Steam, Euston is hard to beat for beer, but only so-so as pub, IMO.
 
Sean said:
The Head of Steam, Euston is hard to beat for beer, but only so-so as pub, IMO.

Was sold about a week or two ago. Fullers bought it out, no longer a scooping pub I'm afraid :(


Well the past three days were awesome, tasted over 130 beers, some obviously not so subjectively though. A few tasty ciders and perries as well!

Now I've got a week to wait till my next beer fest in Copenhagen :)
 
Thanks Sean, have read a bit about the White Horse. Ross PM will be on it's way when I find the itinerary which is on Mrs Nonic's Ipod. I wonder what is meant by "we wont be sitting in pubs all the time", guess I'll be on my lonesome lol.

Kook, not sure if this 100% but it appears that the Czech Beer and Hop festival is on at the same time as the Belgium Beer festival in Brussels, cruel world.
 
Sean said:
Lamb, Lambs Conduit Street (Youngs)
[post="70037"][/post]​


Ditto the Lamb Sean,

Best kept Young's in London (IMO anyway). Beautiful looking place to boot. :rolleyes:

Warren -
 
CAMRA have got some photos up from the 2005 GBBF here

Looks like the Thursday hat day was a bit of fun.

Beers,
Doc
 
kook said:
Sean said:
The Head of Steam, Euston is hard to beat for beer, but only so-so as pub, IMO.

Was sold about a week or two ago. Fullers bought it out, no longer a scooping pub I'm afraid :(

[post="70066"][/post]​
I hadn't heard that yet (though it comes as no great suprise). Doesn't bother me too much - I'm not into scooping/ticking but I know a few people who will be disappointed.
 
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