Hamish Champ: The Great British Beard Festival

I love beer, especially the cask ale variety. Ask anyone who knows me and they'll confirm this not-so-earth-shattering fact.

But until I joined The Publican​ a little more than two years ago I'd never once been to the Great British Beer Festival. All that boundless enthusiasm for beers with daft names, all that back-slapping bonhomie, all those beards; I have to be honest, it was simply an event that never appealed to me in the slightest.

However, having now notched up three GBBFs in a row in a professional capacity I am happy to concede that I might have taken my trademark cynicism a tad far.

And yesterday I notched up a real first in having the privilege, nay honour, of being a judge in CAMRA's Champion Beer of Britain thing.

Now, my criteria for assessing any beer that is put in front of me has always been a) what it looks like, b) what it smells like and c) what it tastes like.

As luck would have it, it turns out these are part and parcel of yer actual beer judging process. True, there was lots of other stuff I took on board from my learned judging colleagues about what makes a good beer, but most of the chemistry lesson stuff sailed waaaaaay over my head.

There was much swirling of glasses and snorting and savouring, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed, although I once fell foul of the lexicon of beer tasting, uttering the less-than-technical assessment of one contender with the words "God, that's crap​."

Yet alongside all this fun and games there was a problem, if you can call it a problem. The judging kicked off at 10.30am and unlike wine tasting one has to swallow, not spit, to coin a phrase. Plus we had to go back and sample a number of the beers all over again just to make sure of the correctness of our final decision.

All this meant that by the time I made my way down to the main exhibition area I was ready for a nap. Ever the professional, I eschewed a dark corner in which to slump 'n' snooze and instead resolutely drank my way through several more beers from stands familiar and unfamiliar, sampling a number of tipples I'd not come across before in the increasingly enjoyable process.

I came away from Earls Court with an early hangover, naturally, and the thought that while living and working in London has its plusses, I wish that more of the capital's pubs could offer greater variety in terms of cask ale. The ones which are familiar to us are perfectly fine, but I would like to see some of the funny name stuff from time to time.

Some pubs, such as the Market Porter, in Borough Market on London's South Bank, already offer such beers, while others - tied ventures, for example - are restricted in what they can sell. It's not a perfect world.

Still, I suppose it makes hunting out such gems a more appreciable experience…