Great British beer pulls in the crowds

The press office at Olympia, site of last week's Great British Beer Festival, has a balcony that is a first-floor eyrie, with a commanding view of the road beneath and the Underground station beyond. On the first evening I watched, almost in disbelief, as people poured off the trains and formed long queues to get into the festival.

This was London, August 2005. Those of us working at the festival serving beer, manning stalls, fronting beer tastings and seminars had been worried that people would not run the risk of making the journey to Olympia, difficult at the best of times but possibly hazardous in a city disrupted by bombs and security.

But beer lovers are not easily deterred from enjoying a pint or two. They came in record numbers. It was a heartening and even moving sight. The opening trade session, attended by publicans and brewers before the doors are opened to the general public, was the best attended in years.

I have been announcing the winners of the Champion Beer of Britain competition for so long that I no longer get nerves. But walking on to the stage this year, clutching the envelope that contained the list of winners, was a daunting task, confronted by a vast sea of expectant faces.

I knew I was among friends when I opened my jacket to reveal a polo shirt bearing the large crest of Ridley's brewery in Essex. 'Go to the Greene King stand and tell them to keep Ridley's open, I urged them, to cheers and applause. I think Greene King got the message.

I was a judge in the final round of the championship and as we sampled the last nine beers blindfold I had no idea which ones were being tasted. It turned out that it was a close run thing between Crouch Vale Brewers Gold, Grainstore's Rutland Panther and Woodforde's Wherry, one a tempting pale gold, the second almost as black as night, the third a traditional copper-coloured bitter.

In between there were bronze and reddish beers, all of them bursting with rich and tempting aromas and palates from the skilful use of different varieties of malts and hops.

Out on the main floors of the festival, the same story was repeated at stand after stand: the richness and diversity of British cask beer were there to amaze and delight us.

The crowds packing the halls dispelled the nonsense that cask beer is in decline or facing a crisis. The crowds dispelled a further myth, too: that only people preparing to enter old people's homes drink the style. There were young people there in abundance, men and women, having a thoroughly good time as they sipped and sampled and declared how wonderful were the beers.

As I walked through the halls I spoke to friends old and new, brewers brimming over with passion for their products and a great optimism for the future of cask beer.

I shall long remember the disbelief on the face of Ollie Graham of Crouch Vale, standing among the throng at the trade session, when I announced he had won the championship with Brewers Gold.

He didn't so much walk as float on to the platform to pick up his award.

Crouch Vale is one of the longest running micros in the country, founded in the early 1980s when the climate and the market were hard for new small brewers. Ollie and his friends carved out a niche by supplying outdoor events that range from rock concerts to re-enactments of English Civil War battles.

Today the company not only brews and sells its own beers but also factors other micro products the length and breadth of the country.

It's a successful small business that richly deserves its accolade and will now come under intense pressure to find the capacity to keep up with the demand for Brewers Gold and its other beers.

In sharp contrast, the giant national brewers were evident by their absence. Sales of their bland and fizzy lagers are starting to fall as cask beer revives. They ignored Olympia, perhaps at their peril.

I salute those who made the journey. We were all Londoners last week.