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Beer festival opens as real ales lose beardy image
10.08.07
Down in one: Start supping for the Great British Beer Festival
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Great British Beer Festival
Earls Court
7th to 11th August 2007
www.camra.org.uk/gbbf
Britain's biggest beer festival starts on 8 August as the drink enjoys a new fashionable image.
The 30th Great British Beer festival runs for five days at the Earls Court exhibition centre, just as traditional ales are enjoying a sharp upturn in sales.
For most of the life of the event, real ales have been in decline as younger drinkers have turned to mass-produced fizzy lagers. Traditional bitters were more often seen as the drink of middle-aged men with pipes, beards and the occasional chunky jumper.
However, the growing interest in locally made food and drink from small and independent producers has helped reverse the trend.
In the past year there has been an 8.4 per cent rise in ale sold in shops.
Meanwhile, restaurants have started to draw up beer lists alongside their wine selections.
Last month, top chef Michel Roux was named beer drinker of the year by the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group for his work in promoting the drink at his Michelin-starred Le Gavroche restaurant. Gordon Ramsay has also introduced beer menus.
In total, 450 kinds of real ale, ciders and perry will be available at the festival, which is organised by the Campaign for Real Ale.
For £6 admission, vistors will be able to rent a one-third-of-a-pint glass to take round stalls and taste the wares.
About a quarter of Camra's 87,000 members are women and the group has its first female chairman, Paula Waters. Madonna famously claimed her favourite tipple was Timothy Taylor's Landlord bitter.
However, Camra said brewers and pub companies still needed to do more to make real ale female-friendly. About 80 per cent of women have never tried the drink in a pub, it claimed.
Ms Waters said: "When is the last time you saw any press or TV advert for beer which is meant to attract women? At best they are inoffensively aimed at men and at worst they are downright patronising to women."
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