Mahinda’s Little World

Not quite a holiday, but not exactly work either.

This August, I finally made it down to the Great British Beer Festival (GBBF), at Earl’s Court.

Now, while I’m a regular at the Winter Ales Fest, pretty much the "other" national beer festival, I’ve not really been to the true beasts — Peterborough, Cambridge and of course this, the alcoholic daddy of them all.

So, I’d been planning for a few years to take the week off work and work it properly — helping with set up, bar work and take down. Unfortunately, work commitments got in the way — I couldn’t take the week off with a clear conscience — so all I did was late-Thursday to mid-Sunday.

Thursday

Got there pretty late, just in time to find Laura at the staffing desk, sign in, and manage a stint at the glasses counter. This, of course, qualified me for entry to the staff session at the end of the day.

Laura. It was her email, beckoning CAMRA youngsters in the Manchester/Cheshire area to a trip to the Hydes Brewery, that kick-started my journey into active CAMRAdom. In the six years since, she’s had a few children and her husband, Mark (aka Goliath) is the head honcho of the whole damn GBBF.

The staff session. In Earl’s Court’s upper hall, there is a whole whopping great area for staff and staff alone. This includes the Volunteer Arms, a fully-stocked and very well kept bar, open for most of the festival. And free. With over a thousand thirsty staff over the week, it’s actually bigger than some beer festivals!

So, I drank a few pints before catching the coach back to where I was staying — free coaches are laid on just after midnight to take you back to your accommodation. I was staying at one of LSE’s halls (Carr-Saunders, I think), close to Tottenham Court Road, which wasn’t bad at all.

Friday

I worked at the Mid-West bar on Friday, which caused a bit of confusion as most people weren’t quite sure what it meant. Fortunately, it wasn’t anything to do with the cornfields of Kansas or Ohio, but more the area encompassing Staffs, Cheshire, and possibly Derbyshire and Herefordshire too. Weird, but it did include a few breweries I knew, e.g. Beartown.

I should point out here that the basic layout is of two large bar squares, comprising eight bars each, with food, brewery stands, etc. laid out in between the two of them. Each bar correseponds to a particular geographical area, e.g. Wales, Scotland, Northwest.

On Friday evening, I met up with Jordan, Barney, Kathy and John for an evening of Monty Python goodness — we went to see Spamalot…which was absolutely bloody brilliant! Full of in-jokes, bad puns and, of course, great big sharp pointy teeth. It’s a beast, I tells you!

I wouldn’t get back to the fest in time for closing, so went for a pint with the others before meandering back to my bedroom and crashing out. I really was knackered by this point.

Saturday

On Saturday, I reported for duty at the Wales bar. Not too many beers I knew…but there were plenty of tasty dark ales to keep me happy.

Late afternoon arrived, and I headed off to help with the Young Persons’ Bar Crawl, led by Gus, our intrepid Young Members’ Group leader. This was brilliant — lots of people, lots of banter, and lots of free beer. It was a real buzz, a whistle-stop tour carried out at absolute breakneck pace. I think I played my part in getting a fair few people signed up…although there were the Aussies who kept asking for "something cold and fizzy". Not round here, mate.

Back to the Wales bar then, and on to the big staff party at the end of it all. Much food, much beer, much merriment. And a life-sized fibreglass cow. Thank you, Badger brewery, from whom Daisy was confiscated. Long story.

The coaches left at something like 2am, and we were all knackered.

We’d sold huge amounts of beer (270,000 pints was the final total), had something like 64,000 people through the door…who consumed just over a metric tonne of scratchings. 1020 kg of very fine pork scratchings. Wow!

I made it to breakfast on Sunday morning…just…and thence back to Earl’s Court to help with the take-down. I ended up helping out in the loading bay — tracking down barrels and stuff so that the various breweries’ vans could load up and leave. Definitely good exercise for the arms — lugging part-full casks around, World’s Strongest Man style!

Didn’t have my watch on, so ended up late meeting Amandhi. We ended up heading to Euston and chatting for a while before I caught the train back home.

In Summary…

All in all, it was a hugely enjoyable (long) weekend. However, I think I prefer working at the Winter Ales Fest (NWAF). GBBF is the flagship event, a different scale to the others, and is run very professionally. It has to be. But I just don’t find it as much FUN.

NWAF is, not exactly amateurish, but more laid-back. As a result, it’s got more of an informal vibe. The customers help with this — I found the general banter at GBBF a lot worse than at NWAF (or any other Northern beer festivals), especially on Friday evening. Maybe it’s because they’re Londoners, or are just there to drink after hard days at their respective offices (but that’s the same as NWAF). I dunno. I just enjoyed it less.

Would I go back there? Possibly — I’d still like to give it the whole week and see what it’s like to do it properly. But, given the choice, I’d prefer to take my days off for NWAF.

It’s gone, that’s where.

Summer this year didn’t really turn up, at least not in this corner of England. I generally regard the time between the May and August bank holidays as summer proper — before, and it’s a bit chilly; after, and it’s September, which is a school month and therefore Not Summer.

As such, my summer usually starts and ends with a bit of a holiday. Either the hockey Isle of Man tour or Hattrick Euro Boozer to start, and all manner of things to mark the end — there’s been the Reading Festival, Notts Uni RamSoc get-togethers, and of course the odd holiday (Sri Lanka for 2005 and 2006, Barbados this year…but more about that later).

One moment, though. When did ’summer’ lose its capital S? Back when I were a lad, I was taught to capitalise the seasons…which nobody seems to do any more. I’ve gone with the flow and made it all lower-case…but I still feel a pang of incorrectness whenever I do.

For the last few years, my summer has been full of tennis sessions in the park, usually Fog Lane. This year, we had one over the Easter weekend, and one a few weeks ago with just Adam and me…and that’s it. Rubbish. I’ve not seen Bethan, a regular partner last year, all summer.

Of course, the weather this year has been pretty atrocious…judging by how the Wednesday hockey sessions have been, it’s not actually been all that rainy, but there haven’t really been any scorching hot spells save a few weeks in early May. Early May doesn’t count.

So now the students are coming back and Manchester’s university corridor is livening up once more. As usual, I’ll miss the quiet once it’s gone, and the last week of September will be warm and sunny. But not summer.

Oh, and I’ve been rubbish on the blog front. I’m trying to rectify that little matter…