A clean Strike

Part 2 of my London Summary.

My friend who had generously agreed to host me and all my family in London for 5 days over the Easter weekend had said that, he would be away on  one of the days the Egham festival as he always goes to that festival. So after some discussions, i decided that the easiest thing for us all, was to head straight to Egham when we arrived in London on the Thursday and to meet him at the festival (having first determined that children were allowed).

Now i had checked the Egham festival website but details of what to expect were light, so i arrived with no real idea what to expect. But boy was i in for a treat. They had about 80+ beers lined up for the 4 day festival, but only about 35 were on at any one time. About 8 on the normal bar inside and the rest set up as a mixture of stillage and handpumps in the patio outside. While there were no tables inside, we were lucky to get a table outside, this allowed me to settle the kids down with the DS and eeepad where they would play contently all afternoon. Since it wasnt too chilly this turned out to be the best place to have sat, as we were a) near most of the beers, b) there was a chalk board beside us that was VERY clearly marked what beers were on and if they were inside or outside.

Imagine my surprise when i discovered that i had not tried a single beer. I cant remember the last time that walked into a bar with more than 3-4 taps  (or any other festival)  where i had not had even a single beer. Speaking to my friend, he says that he never even checks the beers list, as the festival always has such an amazing beer list. All told i started as is my want with the porters and stouts, and boy were they all in perfect nick and pretty amazing beers, even when i moved onto other styles i was more than impressed. This is a festival that i like my friend would not want to miss if i lived locally and i hope to make it back next year with a little luck.

As an interesting aside, i also got to try some trial brews but a soon to open brewery, Wierd Beard Brewery, All three beers were decent and id not have been annoyed if id spend money on each of them. The stout was a little too fizzy for my liking and the pale hoppy ones were not quite my kind of beer, but all showed great promice and i look forward to seeing what these guys can do in the future. So best of luck guys