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Bil from Slow Food Ireland has some more tickets, if anyone's looking for some, last minute.

I'm afraid I can't make it this year. While you're all off tasting your fancy beer from De Molen in London, I'm stuck here in the Netherlands. <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

Have fun. Make sure you try any beers that reference 'bubblegum' or 'unicorn milk' in their profile descriptions.

What is "Unicorn milk" a reference to the old "Dragon's milk"? A strong english something but what?

Adam

"bubblegum" does get a mention every now and then, particularly for Hefeweizens.

I'm afraid that "unicorn milk" is a my own cynical invention. Surely everyone knows that unicorns don't have mammary glands? <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->

GBBF Chamption Beer(s) of Britain announced:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="gbbf.camra.org.uk/cbob">gbbf.camra.org.uk/cbob


Personally, I have to say that I am surprised to see Timothy Taylor's Landlord come second overall and win the Best Bitter category outright. It's a fine beer, but I have sampled many better real ales in the last year alone.

Still, it's refreshing to see the beer festival maintain an ethic where subtlety ("less is more") is rewarded. (i.e. as opposed to the trend across the pond where there is an automatic gold medal awarded to the triple-hopped beer with twenty types of hops, matured in casks made out of surfboards and infused with moon rock from the Apollo 11 mission).

&amp;quot;Salacious&amp;quot;:1ja70k61 wrote: Still, it's refreshing to see the beer festival maintain an ethic where subtlety ("less is more") is rewarded. (i.e. as opposed to the trend across the pond where there is an automatic gold medal awarded to the triple-hopped beer with twenty types of hops, matured in casks made out of surfboards and infused with moon rock from the Apollo 11 mission).[/quote:1ja70k61]

I have to agree completely, except for one little detail: I think both beer cultures are pretty "extreme", one is extreme about extremely unbalanced, strongly flavored, and generally high ABV beers and the other is extreme towards balanced, subtle, lower ABV beers. I think it could be argued that Bavaria is fairly extreme in their preference for low bitterness, low hop flavours and extreme maltiness in many of their styles, too.

It all leads to greater diversity and choice in the marketplace, which is what I as a consumer really want to see anyway.

I really, really hope CAMRA succeeds in saving many of the UK's low ABV, balanced beers and beer styles, but at the same time I hope the US market continues to push the envelope with the extreme end of the spectrum. I also hope Germany also continues to produce many of the sweet and malty specialities that I love, but I really hope they get their marketing act together because they're getting their proverbial beer making A$$es handed to them for really no reason except that they have nearly no band recognition and they seem unwilling/unable to counter common false negative claims/stereotypes about German beer. (But I am digressing...)


Adam