Just stepping out for a beer - at the World's Biggest Pub

Well it's August again and time to don my false beard, socks and sandals and head south for the Great British Beer Festival, a terrific annual event that celebrates its 30th birthday this week. Makes you think a bit doesn't it? Thirty years ago my son, Andy, was just born while Elvis went to serenade the celestials on the great concert stage in the sky. Where were you in 1977?

Back then Jerry Brunning was still, so to speak, bopping in his blue suede shoes with all thought of the pub business yet deeply buried in his psyche while Britain's unique brewing heritage valiantly fought for survival in the face of the onslaught from fizzy keg and lager. Some brewers had even dropped cask-conditioned ale as they consigned it to life's empties bin. To spare their blushes, the guilty men shall remain nameless but they know who they are.

Your very own blogger was a thirsty wee reporter up in Darlington, where one of the erstwhile culprits had many pubs around the town - but magnetic they were not (that's a clue by the way). I lived next door to one of their area managers and on a Sunday lunch - remember the Sabbath's 12-to-two drinking window? - he was always anxious to join one of my regular forays to a proper beer house, as long as the lads kept it quiet. Where are you now Geoff? Anyway the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) was not letting these brewing miscreants get away with it, hence the first GBBF, a relatively quiet affair, I believe, held at Alexandra Palace.

Since then Camra has become probably the most successful consumer champion ever and nowadays the festival is a far cry from its stereotype beardie-sandals image (and that was just the women) of the seventies. Last year some 66,000 drinkers pitched up to partake in one of the world 's biggest rounds - 300,000 pints pulled over the course of five days. Blinkin' heck, glad I wasn't in the chair.

This week those figures are expected to be surpassed as year-on-year the festival moves on to attract an eclectic range of visitors, from young advertising types and the capital's female professionals to the gregariously imbibing DJ Chris Evans - who, I understand, enjoyed himself so much last year he has pledged to attend every night of the five day beerfeast.

The very accessible venue of London's Earls Court will help get more people there: it's the second year at the super-venue after outgrowing the leaky Victorian splendour of Olympia. A terrific atmosphere and the mind boggling choice of beer, in what is known as the World's Biggest Pub, will keep them there.

Real-ale-hard-men

And amidst the thronging beery mass at Tuesday's trade day will be a hand picked team from Brunning & Price. These lads (and a few lasses) are so dedicated to their public that there's no end to the suffering and deprivation they will endure in their mission to ensure only the best beers of the land reach your lips.

In the kind of precisely executed stealth operation mirrored only by a balaclava-clad SAS snatch squad, the day begins in Cheshire at first light (for them anyway). They will embark the luxury personnel carrier with that cheery, but slightly nervy, bravado that precedes all really big shows. Some 12 hours later the survivors will slump into their seats bedraggled, bewildered and exhausted following relentless and unforgiving manoeuvres among the 700 or so real ales, foreign beers and ciders on offer. The five hour trip back to base will be as nothing to these real-ale-hard-men. However they will still face one final test; there's no loo on the bus!

But that's the sort of people they are, these Brunning & Price beer heroes: selfless individuals like Paul and Dave from Harkers, 'Camra John' from the Cornmill and the 'big Jon' of the Combermere. Yes, they are made of stern stuff. Just don't expect to see them around much on Wednesday.

And what of your valiant blogger I hear you ponder? Well, 007 like, I'll be going solo. My burden of duty means I must spend two days sniffing, tasting, and chatting with brewers and a very idiosyncratic bunch of cask-ale-voyeurs - such are the rigours of the beer writing life.

To borrow somewhat from the idiom of Capt Lawrence Oates's famous last words to Scott of the Antarctic: "I'm going for a beer and I could be some time." You may see me there: I'll be the one in the socks and sandals.