A review of the 2012 Bradford Beer Festival
From the outside the impressive honey-coloured
mass of Victoria Hall sits like a giant sponge cake
in the middle of Saltaire. Inside, for one week
in February, a highly-organised team of Camra
volunteers set up and serve up scores of wonderful
beers to crowds of avid drinkers, in three rooms on
two floors.
It’s the Bradford Beer Festival, and other annual
ale events pale in comparison. The venue is an
attraction in its own right and just the right size,
the location is easily accessible by bus and train,
and the selection is wide but not overwhelming.
The Festival goes from strength to strength, and
needs little publicity. An advance ticket system
ensures Victoria Hall is never swamped, and there’s
a choice of five sessions from Thursday to Saturday.
I’d pretty much given up on beer festivals, after
one overheated, purple-carpeted grim function
room too many, but Bradford has revived my faith
– it can be done well, and we’re very lucky to have
the event in our district. Some Camra members
give up their holidays to work the Festival, with
one volunteer coming over from Germany every
year just to be part of the event.
We usually go for the Saturday
afternoon session There’s something
about the light streaming in through
the floor-to-ceiling windows, with
the views of Saltaire and Baildon
Moor, as the brass band pump out
Yorkshire anthems.
Our beers of the Festival were two – Braustelle
Caulfield, from Cologne and labelled ‘First German
Imperial Stout’. At 10%, it was thankfully available
in third of a pint measures, as were the other beers
available. Hard to describe, fruity, a taste of brown
sugar, but not too sweet, simultaneously rich and
balanced, a moment when all the taste buds shout
hallelujah in unison.
The second was Kirkstall Tun, the perfectly-
judged 7% 100th brew from this new-ish brewery.
Kirkstall’s Dave Sanders recently produced the
excellent Aquitaine 8%, of which a correspondent
said: “Soothes and invigorates in equal measure.
A nice jigsaw of flavours in which there is a hint of
fortified grape and a nuance of ice cream vanilla.
Pleasant and lingering earthy aftertaste, which
blends with the fruit at the front of the next sip.”
Kirkstall can now be dubbed one of the foremost
English brewers. Dave’s term at Elland Breweries
had many great beers, but now Kirkstall is coming
into its own.
The Festival organisers say they take beers off
sale during each session to ensure that the next
session starts with a full complement but we had
no problem – everything we went for was on tap
throughout the afternoon.
Special mention for the excellent pork pies from
Lunds of Keighley, essential ballast to keep our feet
firmly on the ground.
It must be hard to get all the beers you want in
one place for one weekend, and I for one would
have like to have seen some representation from
Derbyshire’s Thornbridge and Huddersfield’s
Summer Wine, and a few more continental beers on
the specialist bar, but life is short, beer is long, and
with the selection available it would be churlish
to complain seriously. The Camra volunteers
were always happy to discuss the ales on tap and
suggest their own favourites, even when they were
obviously hoping to save a particular barrel for a
staff session afterwards.
Afterwards, sated, we went home to gradually
rehydrate and look forward to next year’s event.
Cheers.
Rob Walsh
