OMG they’ve got a ping pong table!

As events gradually start up again, it’s very interesting to observe how beer festivals move on.

We are, after all, in the aftermath of a horrible plague which we dearly hope has now passed its peak and is on the retreat.

Yes, it seems that the era of pastry stouts is coming to a close at last.

Four years ago you couldn’t move for the bloody things at the Edinburgh Craft Beer Festival, with horrors such as Neapolitan ice cream pale ale and maple, coffee and pancakes stout on offer. This year I arrived prepared for more of the same – popping into the Diggers on the way for a reassuring pint of heavy as a counterweight – and was pleasantly surprised to find an altogether more grown-up festival with a huge array of well-made, drinkable beers.

The new order for events means that the festival is now much more spacious to allow for distancing and air circulation. It’s not inside the venue stated, but in a series of marquees behind the venue.  I really like the airy, open-air seating area which reminds me a bit of the Bavarian festivals where I discovered lager all those years ago.

The first brewery stand I spy is Leith’s Newbarns, a relatively new and much hyped brewery whose beer I have not yet tasted. Time to change that.

Their Pilsner is not bad, hoppy enough and perfectly pleasant. If you modeled your Pils on one of the mass-market German Pilsners you might end up with something like this. There’s a bit of fruitiness and it could do with a tad more body. It’s not bad, but not great either.

The musical theme for the evening appears to be the 1980s, which is not terrific for someone like me who suffered them first time round. The music is extremely loud and gets louder as the evening progresses.

Newbarns’ other lager is Haná, made with Czech heritage malt. This has been tapped early for the festival so it’s not as clear as they would like but it tastes the way they want it to. It smells like Helles – fresh Pils malt and tastes like one too. Nice deep gold colour, thick, creamy and almost lactic. But it’s a little flabby with no structure, perhaps underhopped in an effort to show off the Hana malt. It’s definitely better than the Pils, and I’d quite like to sit down with this in a quiet corner somewhere, but there isn’t one.

There are definitely fewer clown breweries this time around. The reason I came to this festival before was to take a chance to try all the silly beers that I’d never normally squander my own money on.  But the festival has matured and there are a lot of drinkable, sensible beers. The novelty beers are there if you want them, but they don’t dominate as they once did.

Lost & Grounded’s Keller Pils is, for my money, one of the finest lagers brewed in Britain. Every year (pandemics permitting) I go to Bavaria to drink lager in the forest. Keller Pils is the only UK beer I know of that approaches that fresh flavour of unfiltered lager on its home turf.

When they released a Helles earlier this year I was less impressed than some other people, because it was only good, not spectacular. But I have always thought that one outstanding beer is enough for any brewery.

On draught, the Helles is much more bitter than Newbarns’ effort, and better balanced, I feel. Keller Pils on draught is perfumey and floral, more so than the can. I could get used to this. I suppose I need to plan a trip to Bristol.

There is a stall advertising a “new alternative to crisps”. Why would you want an alternative to crisps?

Bristol’s Newpark Town brewery are here and they have a Berliner Weisse, and if there is a Berliner Weisse I am going to try it. Sadly, it tastes like a typical British yoghurty, sherbety pale sour, dull and with hardly any head. I don’t know why the idea has spread in the UK that Berliner Weisse shouldn’t have any foam. Have they never seen a picture of the old glasses that were made to hold a gallon?

Salt brewery from Yorkshire have a kveik IPA which smells like something The Kernel would have done ten years ago, but is none the worse for that. The fruity yeast and dank hops make a surprisingly good combination.

The music, which has improved and I now like in and of itself (even the Weather Girls), is far too loud and detracts from any serious contemplation of beer. Even looking at the outside tables you can see people sitting as far away from the speakers as possible.

Dark Star have brought eight cask beers, on handpump if you don’t mind, and are possibly the oldest brewery here, which makes you think. Their Revelation is strong, resiny and caramelly and the end effect is a bit like drinking hop toffee. Dark Star Critical Mass is like nothing else at this festival: cocoa, penny-tray sweets.

I am launching a campaign to get Thornbridge to brew their excellent Bamberg rauchbier again, so I ask for it specifically at their stand. You’ve got to make it clear that there’s a demand. Of course, there isn’t any. I end up with their Riffle, a fairly straightforward West Coast IPA, which as you expect from Thornbridge is skilfully executed, with an attractive golden colour and perfect combination of citrus and resin. It almost compensates for the lack of Bamberg.

The 9.6% Imperial Brown Stout from The Kernel is really very chocolatey indeed – oily, dark brown-black, not much head and very sweet, all cocoa and bitter chocolate. It pains me to say it but this is a little one-dimensional. That single dimension is very good, though.

Fürst Wiacek, a trendy Berlin brewery, has been collabbing with Lost & Grounded. Courtesy of their importer, who also handles the equally trendy Frau Gruber, there are two of their beers on offer. One is “Berliner Landbier”, whatever that is. Presumably brewed in Berlin rather than Bristol, it has a lovely very, very fresh malt character that you almost never encounter even in the best British lagers: Very pale, unfiltered and reminiscent of a Tegernseer or something; sweetish, a touch of garlic, and just a touch of vinegar. OK, I like Fürst Wiacek.

(The Fürst is big on quality control: when I tweet about this vinegary note the brewery tweets back asking for details of where I drank it so they can look into any possible problem).

When I return to their stand later, I get Loose Juice, a “collaboration” with hop merchant Barth-Haas. Isn’t every beer a collaboration with a hop supplier, I ask myself. Don’t you just, like, buy hops and brew with them? The set-up appears to be that Barth-Haas supplies new hop varieties to brewers and the resulting beer is tried out in Barth-Haas’ taproom. I didn’t know they had a taproom.

It’s a nice pale ale, fresh and bready with a bit of sweetness and a healthy dose of hops. The hops involved are Citra, Citra Lupomax, Azacca Lupomax and Cashmere Lupomax (Lupomax is a new kind of hop pellet with a smaller proportion of vegetable matter which promises bolder flavour and aroma), but it comes across as quite classical and not overly citrussy. A little bit chalky, sweet and perfumey, I like it. I sort of wanted the Berliner Landbier to be my favourite, yet on reflection this is the better of the two – not that surprising, really, as Fürst Wiacek have built their not inconsiderable reputation on sludgey pales, not lager. If we could have the malt character of the Landbier combined with the hops of this, I’d be very happy.

I join a queue at the Dead End Brew Machine stand. This is the project of Chris Lewis, once a renowned home brewer in Glasgow and now renowned for creating quite special small-batch beers, which usually involve wood, fruit, long aging or all three. The first he has at the festival is a saison which has been aged in a second-fill Sauvignon Blanc cask.

Chris naturally carbonates his beers and the resulting soft, pillowy foam gives the lie to those who claim it doesn’t make any difference. The saison is slightly tart and has a decent wood character from the barrel, as well as the expected white wine.

Some of the breweries here are very highly regarded outfits that I’ve somehow – not intentionally – failed to ever sample. Deya is one of these and the beer I am poured is Steady Rollin Man, which I’ve heard of yet never drunk. The guy at the stand describes it modestly as ”becoming a cult classic.” To me, it just tastes like every other dry-hopped IPA in a tin with abstract art on the side. Let’s dump it and get something better.

Popple Pale by a newer, even trendier brewery, Beak from the south coast of England, who have the self-confidence and effrontery to set up shop in the same town as Harvey’s, resembles cloudy apple juice, soft, fruity, almost no bitterness, rather like drinking blancmange and not really very exciting.

Northern Monk’s triple IPA Glory (10.5%) is one of the surprises of the evening – dank with hop pellets. Very, very sweet, as you would expect from a beer of such a massive gravity. The hops, though there are plenty of them, don’t come close to challenging the sweetness, it’s essentially unbalanced but pleasant nonetheless. Looks like grapefruit juice but grapefruit juice would be far more bitter.

I have genuinely never heard Frankie Knuckles at a beer festival before, this is something else.

Stunner of the night is from Six Degrees North, the Sabro IPA. So fruity, reminiscent of the plasticy, raspberry ripple aromas of Sorachi Ace but without it being as offensive as that hop can often be. Oily, fruity and dank all at the same time.

To finish off before I head for my train home, the wonderful chilli stout by Dead End Brew Machine: chocolatey, green chili flavour but little heat, so you can drink it. This is an absolute masterpiece.

I haven’t been to a beer festival for so long that any festival is welcome. Like last time, I was here mainly because the organisers sent me a free ticket. Would I pay my own money to come to this? You know, I think I might. And there seem to be plenty of others more than willing to do it too, which is much more important. Just turn the PA down a bit next year, eh?