06 July, 2008

The 4th of July in London



What a better way to spend the 4th of July than in London, England! At least that was our best option since we were not planning on returning back to the U.S. for the holiday. During the few days we planned to spend in London to see a Jack Johnson concert and to view the historic sites, we also found out that there was an American craft beer festival at a bar/restaurant called the White Horse. The fest started on July 4th and was set to run until the 6th.

We were only able to go on the 4th but that was the best day to be there! After a few Underground transfers, we had just a few minute walk to the bar and when we got there about 7:30 the place was packed beyond belief. The outside patio area at the front of the bar was crammed with people so we made our way into the bar and took a look at the special beer list they had for the fest. At any one time there were about 27 beer on tap and a good deal of them were cask! They had a nice selection of beers from Sierra Nevada (Bigfoot, Southern Hemisphere Harvest, Extra Special Pale, Porter, etc), Flying Dog, Brooklyn, Terrapin, Anchor and a good number of English cask beers using American hops which was nice to see. One beer that really caught me by suprise to see on the list was Struise Black Albert in cask! It was a suprise as this was an American Beer Fest and Struise is Belgian but it was more of a suprise that the beer was in England and in cask none the less! Due to the rarity of this beer I had to try a glass, despite it not being American.


We met up with a group of very nice folks from http://www.babblebelt.com/ , mostly from England and one woman from the U.S. We ran into a few of these fellow beer lovers in Antwerp in December and had another great time.

Overall I tried several very tasty American beers, a few English, a Black Albert, and met up with some great people. Overall a great night!


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