Now I have your attention with that totally unjustified outburst of LOLspeak, I need to clear something up. It was mentioned in a recent email that working at a beer festival “sounds a little sober”.

How very wrong you are…

You see, during the local Beer Festival, volunteers are allowed, nay, encouraged, to try the beer on offer. It’s all about being able to offer meaningful advice, you understand. Since not every volunteer will be able to make the pre-festival tasting, and since the average volunteer is really quite into the whole beer-drinking thing, drinking the offerings is de rigueur during breaks in serving. A few moments stolen away from your bar area is usually spent exploring the other bars, and flashing the staff badge in order to get another cup full and a friendly smile, maybe a request for your views on the taste and a recommendation for later. The only request is that you stay sober enough to serve the punters. Anyone else tried serving on a bar drunk? This wasn’t my first experience in that area – it was as easy as I recalled, and more fun than the sober alternative.

Oh, and that’s just during the open hours.

Once the doors close there are a couple of hours of proper drinking to be done. Once doors close on the final night there is invariably a quantity of beer remaining, and the organisers would rather not have move and dispose of this, so that’s another duty down to the volunteers.

Over the Friday and Saturday nights I worked, I’m ashamed to say I only tried 50 of the 94 on offer (that I remember). Most of those were on the first night. On the second night many beers had already finished, so I didn’t add too many to my tally, and ended up drinking the same ones over again. Nonetheless, I think it was a much better showing than the many years I’ve been a punter with a ticket.

Beer Festival Volunteers. Unpaid, but not sober.

My Beer of the Festival? Dark Star Summer Meltdown. Ginger flavoured and great.