The end of an era?

 I've mentioned on here before my involvement with the Campaign for Real Ale and specifically with the Great British Beer Festival. My Dad was a CAMRA member from the early days of the Campaign, and got involved with our then local branch's beer festival "Pigs Ear" pretty much as soon as it started running. Inevitably that lead to me getting involved as well - initially working on the charity stall in the foyer, then when we relocated to a new venue without the space to have the stall, I moved on to initially working in the kitchen and then once I was actually old enough to be working in the main hall, the glasses stand. A few years on saw me shifting to the admin side - looking after press & PR, and assisting with the finances during the festival itself. It was at Pigs that I met MrEH, and there again that, a few years later, we agreed to go on our first date. Yep - it has a lot to answer for! 

A dramatic sky lighting up Olympia’s roof…

At the time we started going out MrEH was already involved with the Great British Beer Festival, having done the Bar Manager's Training Course there, and then become a Deputy Manager on one of the bars. I'd never particularly felt any urge to go and volunteer there, but at his encouragement reluctantly agreed to go along. First reactions weren't great, but at the point where he realised I was about to pack it in and head home, he suggested that there would be a role for me "behind the scenes" on their bar - so on the basis that I didn't have to serve the public, I agreed to give it another try, and sure enough, I found that the atmosphere of working with a good team of people was thoroughly enjoyable. Gradually I started adding to my knowledge, being taught the cellaring process and learning to take care of the beer that would subsequently be served to the customers (although almost never by me!), and when original Bar Manager Dave decided to move on to a new role a couple of years later leaving the bar in the hands of MrEH and his co-manager Bobbie, she asked me to step up to the role of Deputy Manager, and I agreed. The following year saw MrEH and Bobbie each taking on a bar of their own, and I became senior Deputy on MrEH's team, where I've been since. (Until this year, but more of that shortly!) 

An early team shot…

The team is the best aspect of the festival by miles - a group of people who, over the years, have become really close friends. Each year we get together for that week - and it's as though we've never been apart. It doesn't matter if we've not seen one another in the interim (although many of us do) for that period of time, it's working alongside some of your very best mates. 

2025 team - unexpectedly “Robyn’s Bar!”

In 2018 we were approached by a member of the Working Party - the committee who organise the festival from the ground up each year - and asked whether we would consider taking on responsibility for the ordering of the British Beer. To everyone's surprise, after a bit of thought we said yes, taking on the role from our predecessors ahead of the 2019 event. It is a massive amount of work, taking up a good amount of our time from November each year through to the end of August following the festival, but it's also been ludicrously rewarding curating a list of beers that we feel the public will enjoy.  We’ve found beers and breweries we’ve never heard of before, given small breweries an opportunity to see their beers showcased at the National flagship festival, and increased the range of styles to include far more dark beer options than there were before. Almost across the board, our selections have been applauded, which is a great reward for the hard work as it’s always good knowing you’ve got things right! 

Times have been getting increasingly harder in the world of festivals though, and none less than when you’re trying to put on a national festival that is primarily intended to appeal to the general public rather than mainly CAMRA members. Covid hit everyone hard, but we lost two years of festivals and a huge amount of momentum - plus the sea-change in people’s working patterns hit us hard - we used to do well from people heading to the festival after work, of taking an afternoon off to come along with colleagues. Now people work from home more and those outings are less prevalent - meaning that we were finding footfall decreasing and the venue emptying out from 8pm on. Then came a forced move of venues from Olympia in London (affected by building works that meant trying to hold the event there was not practical) - another year missed as by the time it became apparent that Olympia wasn’t going to work there was sufficient time to re-plan for elsewhere for 2024. 

Beer mat art for a social media post…

Now it’s become apparent that this year’s Festival at the NEC may well be the end of the road for The GBBF - although the festival itself received good comments about the beer and even some aspects of the venue, the attendance simply wasn’t what we needed, and it proved impossible to even break even, never mind making any sort of profit. From my perspective it was an unexpectedly hectic one - with MrEH being taken ill a couple of days before we were due to travel to Birmingham that left me (because if course he insisted I still needed to go!) not only looking after the Beer Order side of things on my own (on site we have responsibility for the two wet stock teams looking after logistics - getting the beer to where it needs to be within the venue, and dealing with collecting the empty casks and kegs at the end - and Stock Control - monitoring the sales on each bar and helping manage stock levels on the brewery bars, specifically) but also stepping up as Manager of our bar too. A tall order, and one that saw me spending the first few days running around like a mad thing trying to keep ALL the plates spinning! Thankfully MrEH was well enough by the Tuesday that he was able to join me and take over the beer order side of things, leaving me to complete my first festival as a Bar Manager with at least a little less stress. As always the team had my back throughout - they’re such a good bunch. Same with the wet stock teams - quite honestly they don’t really need me getting under their feet anyway! 

Wet stock teams! 

So what happens from here then? We don’t officially know yet - but we’ve been told that there will be no festival under the GBBF Brand in 2026. Realistically, while there may be some form of national festival again at some stage in the future it’s unlikely to be in the same mould, and so chances are that leaves us without a role going forwards anyway. Whatever happens now though being involved with it has been an incredible experience, we’ve met some wonderful people, worked in some iconic places and had huge amounts of fun with it - but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the thought of a little more free time to explore other options in life isn’t quite appealing. Even things as simple as being able to do the whole of the Royal International Air Tattoo in July without feeling guilty for leaving all the work with MrEH will be quite a change! 

For now at least, au revoir GBBF - it’s been a blast! 

Robyn

September in the Garden

 Well here we are yet again, approaching the end of another growing season, and yet right now, we're still harvesting. I'll probably use next month's post to review how things have gone for the year, and to note some things that we've already discussed that we'll do differently next year, as for now it seems right to focus on the current season.

The weather this month has been a mixed bag - between some gloriously sunny days and still quite a lack of rain a lot of the time, we've also seen winds strong enough to demolish the tall runner bean wigwam built around our lovely metal obelisk, and rain sufficient to pretty much refill the completely empty water butt. That's been helped by the new log store roof and guttering completely filling the large blue trug that it feels into a couple of times at the start of the month as well. We're also seen the first couple of frosts towards the end of the month - so far not reaching the ground, but very much evident on the shed and office roof. 

We're still drowning in beans - and in spite of the collapse of the wigwam the ones we planted elsewhere have not only continued producing, but are even still flowering! They look very pretty clambering over the  arches, too. 

Before the wigwam collapsed we did spot some small insects crawling about on the beans - it appeared that we'd had several batches hatch, and a bit of research suggested that they were probably shield bugs of a non-native variety, and that they might well be interested in noshing their way through our crop, so those were dealt with in the best way we could muster - by cutting off the affected areas from the plants and dumping the lot into the garden waste bin! 

The Nasturtiums finally started growing properly - although sadly so late that we suspect they will be frosted and die before we get the benefit of many flowers and the resulting seeds (which are a great ingredient for piccalilli!). If you look in the very top of that photo you can also see that next door have entirely put us to shame with their sunflowers as well - they've had some giants this year, and the battle lines are very much drawn now, for next year we WILL be upping our game! 

The last of the tatties have now been dug and again we've been impressed with the size of some of them - of they weren't quite badly affected by scab they'd be great for jacket potatoes! Allowing that they were grown in a narrow strip of freshly dug soil they've done amazingly though - and of course in the usual way they've also done a huge amount to improve and break up that soil as well - we're intending to re-use that area for cabbages before the year is out. 

All in all, not a bad month. Now if we could just get a last couple of weeks of warmer temperatures and just a little more sunshine, we might even persuade the final courgettes to give us a last-minute glut! 

Robyn