GBBF 2022: Hello, old friend!

Three years is a long time in beer. 

With the 2020 and 2021 Great British Beer Festivals successively cancelled due to some sort of 'pandemic' or other, it's been a long time to wait, but last week the agony of waiting was finally over. GBBF came back!

I first attended the GBBF in 1994 and have been back every year since, so it's pretty much a part of my DNA now, and I've seen it change and evolve gradually over the years.

I particularly enjoyed myself in 2018, and 2019 wasn't bad either, but following two years of missing out, even a terrible GBBF would've been good, if that makes sense.  

GBBF is officially Great again

This time last year, I begged the question: Has the GBBF lost its G?

CAMRA's flagship beer festival was, I felt, in the doldrums. A victim of both its own success and the younger, more exciting competition. Many agreed with me. Long-time GBBF volunteer Tandleman asked 'How was GBBF for you?', stimulating further debate.

(I like debate. Though possibly not as much as I like good beer.)

Well, we've had another one since then. So how was the Great British Beer Festival 2018?

A first timer's guide to the GBBF - from a GBBF old timer

So, the GBBF starts tomorrow, and I've been looking forward to it since, well, since the last one! If I had a calendar, I'd have been crossing off the days in a big red marker pen (but not sniffing the nib afterwards, because that's solvent abuse, kids).

Alcohol abuse, on the other hand, is perfectly fine - so long as it takes place within the awesomeness of a big fuck-off beer festival.

I've been going for 20 years now, and while it was always a unique event, it's now bigger and better than ever and looms like a vast, beery ox in a year-round field of chickens. The very anticipation causes me to come up with fucktarded metaphors.

Anyway, the sheer massiveness of it all it can be a tad daunting for GBBF virgins, so following on from my rough guide to British beer festivals, here are a few friendly tips for anyone who perhaps doesn't have an awful lot of GBBF experience: