CAMRA’s flagship Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) is usually held in August in Olympia, London (OK, not this year!) but the GBBF Winter (formerly known as the National Winter Ales Festival) has been a moveable feast. The last two years it has been hosted at Burton-on-Trent, which is also home to CAMRA’s National Breweriana Auction (something else to attend one day!). The GBBF Winter was held in Birmingham in 2020 but then had to go ‘virtual’ in 2021 and was cancelled in 2022. When I first attended the winter festival in 2018 and 2019, it was in Norwich, a fine city that is also home to an excellent beer festival in October (although not this year because the fantastic medieval halls are being refurbished). I expect some readers will have longer memories of CAMRA’s Winter festival, whatever its branding.
I had thought that winter beer festivals were all about dark beers but not so! They do feature heavily but there are plenty of other types of beers and ciders available too. From the punter’s side of the bar, a GBBFW just seems like another excuse to gather a range of awesome beers from around the country in whatever area has a big enough venue (and a robust enough staffing team!) to host a national festival. Thanks, as always, to the amazing volunteers, some of whom looked familiar, no doubt from other festivals I have been to over the years.
I had read unfavourable reviews on social media about last year’s GBBFW, with questions raised about queues and capacity issues. However, having read that the feedback had been taken on board, my partner and I decided we would just go anyway and make up our own mind as to whether it was worth attending. I’m pleased to report we were not disappointed.
Getting to Burton-on-Trent from London takes a few hours by public transport, so we decided to travel up Friday afternoon and stay overnight in nearby Derby and then spend Saturday at the festival. There are plenty of pubs to enjoy in Derby, as featured in the October/November 2023 London Drinker. We managed to sample a few of these on Friday and, if you fancy a bit of fine dining, there is also an excellent new restaurant, the Pepperpot.
Music is always a strong feature at GBBF, whether summer or winter. We were delighted with the Wurlitzer set at lunchtime, delivered by Martin Atterbury, who has been playing to Burton-on-Trent audiences for ‘at least the last 25 years’. Martin played lots of pub favourites, which reminded me of the days of the Saturday sing-alongs at the Fox & Firkin in Lewisham, some decades ago. Add to that a few ‘Last Night of the Proms’ tunes and other classics, it all made for some jolly entertainment, not too loud, and we were still able to have a conversation.
We sat up in the gallery, which made for a good view of proceedings and it was not too far to trot down the stairs for refills. Beer was sold from bar alcoves around the hall, plus there were two brewery bars (Titanic and Thornbridge) although we didn’t get to sample these because they ran dry! That said, we’re already familiar with most of the Titanic range (yum!) so it wasn’t too disappointing. There were also plenty more casks in another room, including the cider range.
Burton-on-Trent Town Hall offers a couple of other spaces: a room serving hot food (and, once you’ve finished eating, please vacate your table) where there were very reasonably priced burgers and chips (£6). The other room included long table seating which was very popular. There was food available here as well from the Crusty Pie stall and a selection of crisps from Taste of Game, both of whom we usually see at the excellent St Albans Beer Festival.
The advantage of going to a beer festival on a Saturday, assuming you go reasonably early in the day, is that there is still quite a lot of good beer to try and it tends to be less crowded than the Friday night session. The afternoon was pretty steady and so, as the day wears on, the choice of beers reduces. We were however not left with little choice; if anything, it tempted me to try more dark beer than I normally might have done. The organisers had also brought in extra supplies; well done them.
Still, we weren’t complaining. The £15 admission charge, including £8 of beer tokens and a beer glass, meant that (for CAMRA members) it was basically a few pounds for a day’s entertainment. Fortified with food late afternoon, we managed to last out long enough to catch the first set from Liquidbrass who are a great party band that got some of the crowd dancing. We began to flag once they took a break and so we headed off to check out the local micropub, the Last Heretic, which had an excellent choice of beers.
Our festival tip is to drink thirds. That way you get to taste more beer, which, after all, is the idea of a festival! Try beers you haven’t had before and also sample some old favourites, particularly if they’re not often available in your favourite local.
I’m looking forward to GBBF Winter 2025. However, first, there’ll be a few more local beer festivals in the next few months and in April we’ll be off to Dundee for the CAMRA AGM. Cheers!
Maria Freeman