On Friday evening I went to the Rochford Beer Festival with Chris and Peter and met Derek (a.ka. the Lone Gunman) there. I lost Chris and Peter after about 10 minutes - I later found out there is another room which I didn't know anything about. Anyway I had a few beers, probably the best of which was Boggarts Dark Mild - 4.0% ABV and apart from this I sampled a few Christmas Beers.

I think next year I will get there much earlier in the afternoon and not at 7:15pm. We had to queue for about 20 minutes to get in and once inside it was far too crowded for my liking - the best thing about it was the glass which I retained and am now using.

This afternoon I have been playing about with Graham. No I haven't, but what I have been doing is trying to improve the photograph of him using the Gimp. I was using some of the techniques outlined here. What do you think?

Check out the original photograph here.

This weekend I went to the annual St Albans Beer Festival. My CAMRA membership finally arrived on Friday so I was able to get in for free.

It was a pretty mellow day and so I just had a few beers and ciders, the old adage of:

cider on beer makes you feel queer

beer on cider easy rider

didn't really apply.

In the afternoon I took part in the quiz and our team got 23 out of 30. We didn't win, but you received two bottles of beer for entering; so for a £2 entry fee you received about £3.50 back in beer. I swapped Ian a bottle of ESB for a bottle of Bitter & Twisted and I also cashed my pint glass in and exchanged it for a nice glass tankard which I am now using at home for my water!

The evening entertainment weren't very good and I don't think the sound system had been setup correctly. They might have been ok in a pub, but not in big hall. It all sounded very similar with the same tempo in all their songs. I thought they would have been better, because they have been around a long time - perhaps that explains why they looked like accountants who were coming up for retirement. I hope it will be better next year, because my Dad has threatened to come down.

I tried to get another photo of Nigel to add to my collection (click on the beer festival tag at the bottom of this post) to see my others. However I think that Ian must have let him know that I was stalking him. Anyway I can assure you that he is maturing nicely. Don't worry I will have another chance at the Rochford Beer festival on 20 - 24 November.

Last weekend I went over to Ian's in Hatfield and had a warm up to the St Albans Beer Festival which I will be attending in a few weeks time. We frequented quite a few pubs which all had beer festivals on - I stuck mostly to the ciders which ranged from about 6.5% to 8.3%.

In the picture you can see Ian, Kevin (the Landlord of the Lower Red Lion) and big John who works behind the bar. Whilst I was in St Albans and Hatfield the boys had a good time at their Grandparents in East Finchley.

I went to the Beer Festival which is held at the Freight House with Ian and had the following:

• Famous Bladder Stout - Cottage 4.2%
• Norman Conquest 7.0%
• Triple fff - Pressed Rat & Wharthog 3.8%
• Herefordshire Dry Perry - Boome Farm 6.5%
• Badgers Botton - Gloucestershire 6.5%
• Somerset Broadoak 8.4%

All in all a very good evening was had...hic!