August 6, 2000 -- For the third year running, I was honoured to be asked to participate as a judge at the U.K.'s most prestigious beer competition, the Champion Beer of Britain taste-off of the Great British Beer Festival. And for the third year running, I arrived late.

Fortunately, as I have learned over the years, the CBOB judging rarely begins on time, and this year's was no different. So my lateness did not spare me several minutes of mingling with my colleagues in the stiflingly hot judges room. (We always seem to be blessed -- or is that cursed? -- with hot, sunny weather on the judging day. And the room in which we are asked to congregate prior to being led into the much larger and airier judging room was not designed for hot, sunny weather.)

In due course, I was invited with the rest of the judges to change rooms and take our places at the tables designated for our respective panels. Along with five of my colleagues, I was asked to sample ordinary bitters, the same task I was given at my first CBOB assignment two years earlier. Another panel also judged bitters, though different ones, while two tables of judges were given the task of sorting out the best bitter category, and a single panel ech judged milds, strong bitters, speciality beers and bottle conditioned beers. Each half-dozen tasters sampled seven beers, with the exception of the bottle conditioned beer judges who were given eight. As always, all beers were judged blind.

The first ale, which we later discovered was Harviestoun's Bitter & Twisted, was light in colour and garnered the favour of the judges with its fresh, somewhat citrusy character. It was later awarded third place in the category, in a tie with Oakham's Jeffrey Hudson's Bitter. (The Hudson's was tasted by the other judging panel, but it so impressed me when I sampled it on the GBBF floor the next day that I became convinced that it should have been the winner of the category.)

The second bitter, Woodfordes Wherry, struck me as a deliciously balanced copper-coloured ale, but one which failed to leave any great, lasting impression. Were it a member of the opposite sex, you would explain to it that while you quite liked it, you really just wanted to be friends.

The third and fourth bitters were agreed by most of the judges at the table to be well out of the running in this group. The surprise came when their identities were revealed to be, respectively, Caledonia Deuchars IPA and Fullers Chiswick Bitter. The former shocked because it had been the "warm-up" beer tasted to cleanse our palates prior to the judging, and had been agreed to be quite nice by all at the table, while the latter surprised with its big, butterscotchy and somewhat off-putting aroma.

Bitter number five was my favourite, Glentworth Lightyear. Simply, I found it to be the most intensely quaffable bitter in the group, a trait I consider quite important in an ordinary bitter. The next beer up, Brakspear's Bitter, had almost the same quality, but reduced somewhat, I felt, by a hoppy sharpness that sat in the back of the throat after each sip. (My fellow judges obviously disagreed; the Brakspear wound up tying for first in the category with Bullmastiff Gold Brew, while the Glentworth finished out of the medals.)

The final bitter was a delightful beer, Triple FFF After Glow. But the problem we faced with it was whether or not it fit the category of ordinary bitter as defined by the CAMRA rules. This provoked some debate around the table, but in the end, I decided that its light, citrusy flavour made it more a summer ale than a prototypical bitter.

For more on the GBBF, please see the Bright Beer section. And come back to KTT later this week for more tasting notes from the Festival floor.

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