GBBF Winter review

The winter edition of the Great British Beer Festival took place in February at Magna, having relocated from Burton on Trent, conveniently replacing the old Rotherham Real Ale & Music festival which came to an end last year.

CAMRA’s Yorkshire region was originally planning on hosting the event in Bradford but the new venue there was looking like not being ready in time to host events so with 6 months to go, it was switched to Magna. The result was something slightly rough around the edges in presentation but an impressive and enjoyable event regardless.

Much of the action was in the “Big Hall” with the live music stage, main cask ales bar, cider bar, tombola, table skittles, diner, seven brewery bars (Abbeydale, Brew York, Chantry, Radio City, Tatton, Theakstons and Thornbridge) and a number of stalls including a tankard engraver and caricature artist.

There were a number of other rooms to explore too with a “Global Pours” bar in its own room serving exclusively imported beer from around the world and in the rainbow hall an Indie Brewers bar serving a varied range of cask ales only from independently owned breweries. There was also a room featuring UK craft beers in keg and a spirit bar with a range of flavoured gins, vodkas and rums.

Being a national CAMRA event it and now in a bigger venue a feature from the summer Great British Beer Festival was rolled out – the Learn & Discover bar, where the staff talked you through a number of themed tasters and each day a different brewer guested on the bar.

The Champion Winter Beer of Britain award is judged here and there was a bar dedicated to showcasing the finalists. The overall champion was Cairngorm Black Gold, a session stout, with runners up named as Sarah Hughes Snowflake (an 8% ABV barley wine) and Grain Slate (a 6% ABV porter).

The winners were announced on stage as part of the Wednesday trade session.

There were a couple of local beers judged in the final – Abbeydale Black Mass (a black IPA) came second in its category behind Sarah Hughes Snowflake whilst Acorn Gorlovka Imperial Stout came third in its category.

To help with the journey home from Magna a special festival bus service operated from the front door shuttling to Meadowhall and Rotherham, this was operated on behalf of CAMRA by Stagecoach using brand new electric buses. Next year things will be even easier with a station on the Tram Train line due to open this coming December with trams from Sheffield and Rotherham directly to Magna!

All category winners