“NOT FOR LAGERBOYS” read the shirts of several Great British Beer Festival helpers. How I mocked but it seems the joke was on me as I vomited copiously into my bathroom toilet at 2AM. Det. Insp. Occam would have opened and shut this case pretty quickly – drinking since 2 in the afternoon plus losing stomach contents equals knowing look.
BUT the GBBF has a wise and sensible policy of encouraging drinking of halves, so while we were all fairly merry I wouldn’t have said I was that drunk. Also I’d been able to have a long chat to my wife about baby gear (which I can actually remember) and I’d read a big chunk of shameful fantasy book. And I know what getting drunk and throwing up feels like, and this was a different type of thing.
No, the finger of suspicion points either to the complexity and richness of real ale flavours overwhelming my tame lager-bred guts, or to a free range chicken tikka baguette I bought on the way out. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Anyway, if you’ve read this tiresome post about vomit you probably want to know more about the GBBF. Well, it was good. I enjoyed it. I have things to say about CAMRA and their marketing which deserve a post of their own, but despite the unfortunate end to my day I left Earls Court more ale-friendly than when I entered it. I completely failed to take many – OK, any – tasting notes; my notebook was put to much more sinister ends. But I can say that my favourite beer of the day was called “Golden Goose” and was a sweet, fruity, highly moreish pale ale from the North West.