A Canadian at Nottingham Beer Festival

I love autumn. The leaves changing colour and gently falling from the trees, the early morning frosts, the happy students returning to classes, and the half-drunken political discussions at family gatherings over turkey and warm slices of pumpkin pie…

But it’s not like that at all, is it? That is the autumn that only exists in fairytales (and Canada). In Nottingham, the only reason the leaves change colour is because they’ve been battered mercilessly to the ground by 8,000mph gales, the early morning ‘frost’ is just frozen floodwater on the ground from it chucking it down the day prior, and the students are only happy if they’re six pints and a spliff into their evening. In fact, if it weren’t for the Nottingham Beer Festival, autumn could eff right off altogether and make way for Christmas. For me, a Nottingham autumn (henceforth known as ‘Nottingtumn’) is about drowning my sorrows. A time to gorge on pies, deep-fried sausages and anything else that gives me any kind of pleasure, in order to take my mind off the fact that the sun is about to go AWOL for nine months. To that end, it’s also a time for blowing the mothball dust off my winter cardie collection, ready to disguise my developing pre-Christmas paunch. If growing up in Canada has taught me anything, it’s that bears have it all figured out; eat until you pass out, and don’t wake up until summertime.

But most importantly, a Nottingtumn is a time for beer. Lots of beer. For many, an autumn bitter is a dirty, jet-black atrocity that resembles the contents of a Speedy Pepper grease trap, smells like a geriatric’s gym shorts, and tastes like a lukewarm espresso that’s been left burning on the stove for a fortnight. It’s something only an Englishman could love, and although I have my shiny new British citizenship, I tend to stick to the ones that taste at least a little bit like beer.

My first Nottingham Beer Festival was three years ago, held in Victoria Baths. Two nights of hosting hundreds of fat, bearded men drinking half-pints of Bishop’s Crooked Bum-crack, and the main drinking room would pong like a swimming pool filled with kiddie wizz... oh wait. It is now held up at the Castle and I can say with confidence that having it in the open air is definitely the way to go.

When I first walked into the festival, I was handed a menu with the names and descriptions of all the beers: ‘A smooth, easy quaffer with summer berry undertones’, or ‘A long and well-rounded bitter with a malty aftertaste’. It might as well have been written in Mandarin. I decided to go for one with a funny name.

Menu in hand, beer chosen, I walked confidently down the rows of kegs, found my beer and had my first interaction with a beer festival volunteer. Ordering beer at a beer festival is not easy, as the sellers are a bit, how you say, youthfully challenged. Not to mention juiced off their faces. This is how ordering a beer at a beer festival goes:

‘Old Slapper please, mate. That one. No, THAT one. No – left, mate. No, your left. Left again… no, up…down… right…right…back one…no… over…YES!’. It’s like tapping the Contra cheat code into an original NES.

Pint in hand, I decided a burger might be in order (I’m North American, innit), and as luck would have it, there was a greasy caff in the next room. Dodging the guts, beards and belt buckles of the beer geek brigade, I made my way to the grill - where I was met with the following, displayed proudly in red ink: ‘Three Faggots £1.50’.

My jaw fell clean out of my head. I didn’t know what to find more offensive, the fact that they’re selling ‘faggots’ in the first place, that they’re using such a derogatory term, or simply that they’re so freaking cheap. Thankfully (and much to my friend Nigel’s amusement), I found out from the faggot seller that they are in fact fried balls of meat. Pretty bloody awful fried balls of meat, I might add. Beer festival tip: British faggots taste 100% better after six pints.

Next stop at the festival was my first in a line of crap British gambling games - the Tombola. The most interesting thing about this Tombola wasn’t the fact that the odds of winning are somewhere between slim and none, nor that none of the prizes are worth winning anyway (sleeveless Harley Davidson tank top, anyone?), but that it was manned by a bearded fella with the largest and most perfectly spherical gut I had ever seen. He made Randy from Trailer Park Boys look positively pathetic. A good Christmas paunch is capable of propping up a small rum and coke; you could rest a keg on this bad boy and still have room for a faggot or two. I was in awe.

I briefly pondered the idea of recruiting him for my new fetish mag, Hot Hot British Potbellies, because if there is any truth to the Rule 34 theory (if it exists, there is porn for it), I would make a fortune. However, a quick Google search revealed that someone had already come up with the idea. If you plan on looking yourself, I highly recommend turning your safe search
on. Yowsa.

I spent the rest of the evening scouring the menu, quaffing multicoloured pints and even trying to talk to the beer geeks intelligently about beer. It’s a dangerous place though – as I discovered the next morning as I woke up with faggot-induced gut rot, a screaming real ale headache and - most frightening of all – a CAMRA membership.

So, I am now entitled to cheap drinks at Wetherspoons (um, yikes) and a subscription to the CAMRA newspaper, What’s Brewing. According to the latest edition, Real Ale is UNDER ATTACK from some nameless Beer Gestapo out there intent on destroying Real Ale and taking away my RIGHTS! Gosh! I’m not really sure how my ‘rights’ being violated has anything to do with Real Ale, but I’d better drink a keg’s worth or two this year. Just in case.

This year’s Nottingham Beer Festival takes place from Thursday 8 to Sunday 11 October at Nottingham Castle - £5 per person, or £2.50 for CAMRA members like Rob.