I find the wording of this announcement quite interesting, whilst I have no doubt that the on-going renovations at Olympia have put a roadblock on next year’s event, a couple of questions that would have seemed unthinkable without this pause have sprung immediately to mind: do we really need a GBBF? And should it be in London?

Personally, I have a deep love/hate relationship with the event. My love comes from the fact I get to see so many people from the industry all in one place for the day; it’s a major event people come from all over the world to visit and, sometimes, you get to try beers that you’d otherwise never get to experience. 

It’s also so great to see the growth in diversity of staff and volunteers at the event, as well as the attendees. In 20 years I’ve gone from being one of probably less than 100 women in a hall full of hoary, hairy men, to seeing gangs of women, and diverse groups, roaming the halls with a ‘ticking’ list of beers on their phones (I do miss the days of no queues for the loos though!).

The dislike part, however, is for the nature of the venue, it’s rather too akin to getting pissed in a bus garage and, despite everyone’s best efforts, the beer quality is just inevitably 75% awful and arguing with volunteers, who don’t know a bottle of vinegar from a pint of beer, is frustrating and dispiriting.  

And, despite the fact I live there and love it, it really shouldn’t be held in the capital any more, its time here is done; not only because it’s so expensive to spend a day in London now, my gut feeling is that the revamped Olympia is going to be beyond a beer festival’s financial reach – and unless there’s a venue I’m unaware of that can offer the same or better facilities in town for non-extortionate prices, I doubt we will see it here again.

So, what’s the solution? Well, I’m afraid I’m erring towards the idea that, perhaps, GBBF as a massive festival has just had its time, as sad as that is to say. 

During conversations about this, I was reminded that long before my time, GBBF used to go on tour around the country, so perhaps there’s something in that? Maybe in its place CAMRA could focus on a series of smaller, regional celebrations to broaden the celebration of British beer to a wider audience?

If there was a way to send cask beer on tour across the country, celebrating the best regions have to offer, with a sprinkling of other national and international offerings to keep the local population curious enough to come as well, surely that could be a more powerful advert for real ale? Rather than preaching to the converted that make the pilgrimage to west London every year. 

It’s not like it’s not a tried and tested formula, it’s worked for festivals like Foodies and Pub in the Park for a number of years now, and people flock to those. 

In fact, it seems like the only set up not to do well out of this approach in the last decade or so was Boris’s ridiculous Festival of Brexit – so, I guess, even if CAMRA does take GBBF regional and it’s not that successful, at least it won’t cost the taxpayer anything!