Although the final session of the beer festival finished on Saturday evening, here is - belatedly - my final completed list from the five days of the event. As you can see, I only really drink the cask ales: I hold the key keg beers in contempt (although I did have a single sip of one from my friend’s glass!)

I have a very simple scoring system: I try to sample every beer, so only drink in half pints. Each time I try a beer, I tick it off (any further halves gain extra ticks accordingly) and this represents a default score of three stars. A cartoon ’thumbs up’ promotes this to a four star tasting, as a ‘thumbs down’ demotes to two stars. The word ‘Yuk!’ relegates a beer to a single star as ‘Yum’ allocates a full five star rating. The acronym ‘BOF’ signifies the beer that received my vote as the best of festival.

#CAMRA #RealAle #ThurrockBeerAndCiderFestival