If you go down in the woods today...

I changed train at Leeds today with 45 mins to spare, so I went down to the canal basin to the coffee shop that does the most fantastic coffee and ham and cheese toastie, made with real bread, real ham and real cheese.  Superb









The "dry" dock here was full of horrible green algae.  I'm not sure what causes this, but it doesn't look good.

Got the train down to London, and over to Olympia for CAMRA's GBBF food and cider festival.  Hidden away behind all the corporate stalls, there were a few bars serving real ale, most of it flat.
The Betty Stoggs band were here making a racket as usual.

I had a nice pint of Cairngorm Black Gold, and a Stonehouse Station Bitter at the SIba stand, then set off around the rest of the stalls.  The stands have beers from different counties, but in a completley random order which makes no sense.

Towards the rear of Olympia we had sulphorous beer after sulphorous beer, throwing them all away. Redemption Hotspur had just won at Tonbridge the other week, so I tried that.  An overpowering sulphorous smell, and a rancid taste. ALL of these beers can't be off ?

The quality of beers was poor at olympia last year, but there are too many beers that I know are good, but are terrible here.  The general consensus is to leave and find a decent pint in a pub somewhere, and don't bother returning to GBBF, which is a great display of food and cider, and a great demonstration of how badly beer can be served.