I don't know about you, but early August has felt very strange this year for me.
There's been no Great British Beer Festival. And my life doesn't really seem to make sense without it.
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| Where I belong... |
Yes, I know we went without it in 2020 and 2021 due to some silly pandemic nonsense, but it was great to welcome it back into my life in 2022 and last year I finally took the plunge and spent the week volunteering which gave me a whole new perspective on the event.
So I'm really missing it.
I've said many times before that there's just something about it that makes the experience unique among beer festivals. It's not just about getting loads of banging beers into my system; it's a part of my life and a tradition.
Picking up rumours and tittle-tattle from various CAMRA sources has got me worried about the future of the GBBF. I don't doubt that it will return - after all, the main reason behind this years event being cancelled was due to the extensive ongoing renovations taking place at Olympia - but it may not be quite the same festival when it does come back.
I've heard that the festival has gone beyond being cost-ineffective and become quite seriously loss-making, which would make it unsustainable in its current form. Over the years staff perks have been cut back a bit in an attempt to offset this but fat can only be trimmed so much before one starts carving into muscle.
A scaled-down half-hearted GBBF of compromises just wouldn't be the same. I'd go, of course, but would I still be in love?
