{"id":6008,"date":"2008-10-02T12:39:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-02T19:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maeib.blogspot.com\/2008\/10\/going-foreign-in-st-albans.html"},"modified":"2008-10-02T12:39:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-02T19:39:00","slug":"maeibs-beerblog-going-foreign-in-st-albans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/?p=6008","title":{"rendered":"maeib&#8217;s Beerblog: Going Foreign In St Albans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t<a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_qKVJ7VlcdQo\/SOUkbz4HpMI\/AAAAAAAABA4\/sgT9jKrP6sA\/s1600-h\/1222376275.JPG\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_qKVJ7VlcdQo\/SOUkbz4HpMI\/AAAAAAAABA4\/sgT9jKrP6sA\/s400\/1222376275.JPG\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>This year was the fourth time I&#8217;ve been to St Albans Beer Festival.  In terms of beer selection it&#8217;s pretty good with a nice balance of common stuff, rarer stuff from new breweries and lots of local beers.  Being in CAMRA&#8217;s hometown there&#8217;s a bit of beer journo spotting to be done earlier in the week too.<\/p>\n<p>One thing I&#8217;ve been disappointed with over the years though has been the beer quality.  I could conjecture as to the cause of the beer not tasting as fresh as it could be, but I&#8217;m sure my opinions would have their critics.  I do think though that indoor festivals during the warmer months do have their difficulties.<\/p>\n<p>But UK beer festivals are often much more than cask beer these days, and St Albans has a great foreign selection.  This year was no exception so I took my Belgian beer glass along and worked my way through a number of new (to me) foreign beers.  It&#8217;s a more expensive<a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_qKVJ7VlcdQo\/SOUkw50TXiI\/AAAAAAAABBA\/DGLA4UuPLZ8\/s1600-h\/39367.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_qKVJ7VlcdQo\/SOUkw50TXiI\/AAAAAAAABBA\/DGLA4UuPLZ8\/s320\/39367.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a> way of enjoying a beer festival but at least condition isn&#8217;t an issue.  It&#8217;s something I could find myself doing more and more.<\/p>\n<p>For the record I drank:<\/p>\n<p>Mikkeller It&#8217;s Alight!<br \/>Het Levenswater Dikke Deur Blont<br \/>Riedenburger Michaeli Dunkel Hefeweissbier<br \/>Agullons Pura Pale Extra Bitter<br \/>Alvinne Lex&#8217;ke<br \/>Klein Duimpje Juniper Ale<br \/>Flying Dog Road Dog Scottish Porter<br \/>Scheldebrouwerij &#8216;t Schoenlappertje<\/p>\n<p>The last beer and the Juniper ale were the worst of the bunch, whilst the clear winner was the hoppy and bretty Mikkeller; another triumph for his superb Danish brewery.<\/p>\n<p>I can get cask ales any day I want in my good local freehouses, but these unusual foreign beers are much more uncommon, and a treat to behold.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/cosmos\/search.html?sub=postcosm&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fmaeib.blogspot.com%2F2008%2F10%2Fgoing-foreign-in-st-albans.html\" title=\"other blogs commenting on this post\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.technorati.com\/images\/bubble.gif\" alt=\"Technorati talk bubble\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\tThis year was the fourth time I&#8217;ve been to St Albans Beer Festival.  In terms of beer selection it&#8217;s pretty good with a nice balance of common stuff, rarer stuff from new breweries and lots of local beers.  Being in CAMRA&#8217;s hometown there&#8217;s a bit of b&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}