Leeds Beer Festival 2015

Who doesn't love a good beer festival?
For the last 6 months I have been counting down to visiting the Leeds Beer Festival. My history with beer festivals have been very steroetypical. In the village where I grew up they have a beer festival every year in the village hall, where about 20 different beers and ciders are on offer (with a burger or cheese board for lunch) to the villagers. On average you see a couple of hundred people there maximum...which is the first difference with Leeds.

On arrival at the Leeds Town Hall the first thing that surprised me was the scale of the event. The queue ran down the street, and the front of the town hall was full of food kiosks. As we had been organised we already had tickets and skipped the queue. It didn't take long for us to bump into our friends who we had planned the day with...they were by the prosecco stand...that is the girls covered!


By the time we arrived Scott had already spent a good hour sampling the beer on offer, this was a good thing for me as due to the scale of the event he could be my guide to what is where.
The main room in the town hall was huge, hundreds of beer lovers were gathered in the centre surrounded by beer pumps...what do I try first?


We made the decision to head into the American room where I began the day with a half of 'Firestone Walker'...unfortunately I was disappointed as this tasted more of a lager than what I expected...however it was still up there with the top tasting lagers that I have had.


Following our American visit we made a quick stop at the Prosecco bar for Liz & Fay then headed downstairs to Europe. All the corridors and cellar rooms were filled with more beer pumps, I could not believe how vast it was. In Europe Scott and I sampled 2 or three different beers (swapping glasses on one as Scott could not stand the flowery Hoegaarden inspired german beer that we had). The highlight in this section of the festival was the Peter Pale Mary 4.6% Ale from Copenhagen, this was very flowery and very hoppy, the flavours were very intense and fruity....yum.


I just want to take a break from talking about beer to mention......the food!!! Naturally we had built up quite a hunger following a couple of hours of 'sampling' beer so we headed outside for some BBQ treats. The selection was almost as extensive as the beer selection, you had everything from fish & chips to BBQ!
I decided to go for the hotdog (as I always tend to go towards burger's) which was covered in onions and mustard. Liz & Scott went for the burgers (topped with pulled pork), and Fay kept it simple with a portion of chips....ready to get back into the beer hall.



Outside we decided to have a quick half from the Beavertown Brewery, Scott went for an IPA and I tried the stout. The Stout was very nice, full of coffee & chocolate flavours...maybe not the best for the weather, but I could not not try a stout.


Finally, in the beer hall we tried a really sour, fruity beer from the London Brewing Co (where we picked up our now famous badges). This beer was, as I said, very sour, I can not really compare it to anything else I have had in the past...but wow what a flavour.


So thats it, one fantastic afternoon at the Leeds Beer Festival. We will definitely be back next year.

-Sam

Btw the day did not end there, but ended in a very messy cocktail session across Leeds City Centre...but that is a story for a different day...see below of pics of the best !