As this post is published, the St. Albans Beer Festival 2026 is in full swing at the Alban Arena. The festival, Hertfordshire’s largest beer festival, is organised by CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, who were founded in a St. Albans pub just a stone’s throw from the festival site itself back in the early 1970’s. The festival first took place in 1996, thirty years ago. My personal history with the festival doesn’t go quite as far back as that, however I have been attending the festival, in one form or another, more years than not, since about 2012.
In the run up to this year’s festival, one of the main organisers, Emily Ryans reached out to me to see if I would be interested in hosting an event this year; a guided walk and tasting around the festival. This would be pitched for visitors who maybe don’t know a huge amount about beer and are looking for some information and tips to help them navigate the festival and try some beers that came recommended from yours truly. I thought it was a great idea and agreed immediately. The festival has 12 bars in total, a mixture of both dedicated brewery bars and a couple of main festival bars. It boasts a total of more than 300 different beers available, so there was plenty to get stuck into.
I always take great pleasure in planning and hosting tastings. Working out the order and rhythm of the beers and how they lead into, or step away from each other. Trying to work out the pitch and depth to go into with them; how technical, or not, to talk to the group. It is always a good exercise for the brain. There is also the variable of the audience; often with tastings you cannot be entirely sure of who it is you will be presenting to, what knowledge level they already have about beer and how much they are looking to get from the experience, trying to plan them in such a way that you can adapt and respond to the audience and not lose the room is always tricky. There is nothing worse than running out of things to say, whilst an audience stares at you expecting more.
The running order for the festival tasting took a few evenings to work out but I was very happy with the final flow which I think showcased a good breadth of styles, Brewery types, strengths and talking points. As it was pitched more at the newcomer, it included some major beers which festival veterans will be well familiar with, plus some slightly more niche choices. Hopefully those who attend see the method in my madness.
I have decided to share the list here and outline why I picked each beer. I covered one beer from each bar, except for the international bar. 11 beers in total. I recommend participants buy no more than a third of each, and feel free to share pours or sit out on some beers if they were struggling to keep up. As this is aimed at the newbie festival attendee there are some notable omissions, for example I did not include any sour beers on the list, I also didn’t include anything of considerable strength, or any alcohol-free beers.
1. Cloudwater Helles 4.5% (keg)
More than two thirds of all beer drunk in the world is pale lager of one type or another, and overwhelmingly when most people think of beer, they think of, cold pints of the fizzy yellow. For this reason, I often try to start tastings with a pale lager of some sort. It is an easy intro, an aperitif. It’s not going to scare anyone off before we even get started.
Beer festivals don’t have headliners in the way that music festivals do, but if they did, Cloudwater would probably this year’s headliner at St Albans, with their own brewery bar for the first time at the festival and bringing a whopping 24 different beers to pour over the weekend. The Manchester brewery has been around for not much over a decade and has in that time produced some of the most hyped beers of UK craft beer boom.They have won numerous accolades, including being crowned the second-best brewery in the world by Ratebeer users in 2017.
The Helles Lager is perhaps not the most exciting beer Cloudwater brought to the festival, but Helles is a style that leaves no room for error. Therefore, the Helles provides a double purpose of showcasing Cloudwater’s impeccable technical brewing ability, whilst also easing the group into the session.
2. Timothy Taylor’s Landlord 4.3% (cask)
St. Albans Beer Festival is predominantly a cask festival. Even though cask ale is our national drink, many first-time festival goers come to a festival having never tried cask before. When introducing any facet of culture to new consumers, you always start with an accessible classic and Landlord is just that.
The biggest cask ale brand in the UK and one of the most awarded cask ales of all time. Landlord is the only beer to have won Supreme Champion Beer of Britain four times and to have won it on consecutive years. It is still brewed by an independent family brewer, who champion quality, provenance and skilled cellarmanship. Landlord is really the poster boy for traditional British ales in the wider public’s consciousness. It’s a logical and easy step into cask and was the first of three beer choices in a row which showcase traditional cask styles.
3. Triple FFF Alton’s Pride 3.8% (cask)
From the traditional pale of Landlord, it felt like the next sensible step would to be into Bitter. It is the style of beer which is most closely associated with cask ale and perhaps the style most closely associated with the UK too. In other tastings I have hosted, Bitter and its variants are often the beers that surprise casual drinkers. Many of the uninitiated are put off by both the terminology – bitter – and by perception of the style, and perception of the sort of people who drink it.
Triple FFF is not a brewery I knew particularly well and so researching them ahead of the festival was very interesting. They are based in Alton, Hampshire and have been going since 1997. Alton’s Pride is a classic pub strength session bitter and still one of their biggest sellers. It was crowned Supreme Champion Beer of Britain in 2008 and Worlds best Bitter at the World Beer Awards in 2025. It being a more amber hued beer it was a prime choice to begin to introduce more pronounced malt flavours into the session.
4. Batham Mild 3.5% (cask)
In much of the nineteenth and twentieth century Mild was the most popular style of beer in the UK. However,its commercial fall from grace in the second half of the twentieth century was significant. These days it is a niche style, but one that still has dedicated fans. There are still a few pockets of the UK where the style is more popular and one of those is the Black Country.
In recent years the St. Albans Beer Festival has had a featured region bar outside on the patio, where beers from a specific part of the UK are showcased together. This year it was a Midlands bar. Amongst the lineup was Batham’s Mild. This is a beer that is rare as hens’ teeth, outside of Batham’s own estate of a dozen pubs. Batham’s Mild is a true classic of the style and one that felt worth highlighting to the group. Its inclusion will help us further explore malt flavours.
5. Wantsum Green Hop Endeavour 3.8% (cask)
September is hop harvest season in the UK and it is towards the end of the month that green hop beers begin to be released. Hops are usually processed and dried quickly after harvest and then vacuum packed and frozen to maintain freshness. Green hop beers (also sometimes referred to as wet hop ales) are where the hops are brewed with, fresh from harvest, within 24 hours of picking. The resulting hop flavour tends to be more grassy, delicate and with a slightly oilier character than brewing with dried hops. Green hop beers are highly seasonal and highly regional, rarely being seen outside of the major hop growing regions of Kent and Worcestershire/Herefordshire. So having one at a festival is always worth a try.
Wantsum are based near Canterbury, right in the heart of hop country. Providing one of just two green hop beers at this year’s festival, it felt right to showcase a beer that speaks of the brewery’s place. This beer will also provide a bridge between the previous three, highly traditional beers, and the next run of four beers which are more contemporary. This was perhaps the closest I came to a selfish choice for inclusion in the tasting, as I love green hop beers and seek them out whenever possible.
6. Oakham Citra 4.2% (cask)
As someone who discovered good beer within the last 15 years it seems impossible to imagine a time before the Citra hop. The powerful lemon & lime citric character of the variety is now the star of so many thousands of beers around the world. It is in fact the most popular hop variety in the world by use and the second biggest in the world in acreage (after the German bittering hop Herkules). Back in 2009 it was Oakham who first brought the fledgling variety over from the US and brewed an extra pale, single hop ale with it. Oakham Citra arguably changed British brewing, and no introduction to contemporary hop-forward cask ale would really be complete without its inclusion.
We will now be halfway through the tasting, and this is the first beer to include a new world hop variety. Following on after a green hop golden ale, this is going to feel like gear change, which is what I want.
7. Tring Moongazing 4.2% (cask)
Tring have been one of the major sponsors of the festival every year since it started in the mid 90’s. They are a brewery that I know well, I drink often and they have a wide range of styles in their repertoire. For that reason, they are the brewery bar that I spent the most time deliberating on which beer to include in the tasting.
Moongazing is a beer that shows how the superstar Citra hop can also be great in a supporting role. The real headliner of Moongazing is rye, an adjunct grain that gives beer a drying and peppery quality. Citric and peachy with that unmistakable rye tannin finish, Moongazing is a beer of two halves and hopefully different participants in the tasting get different things from it.
8. Creative Juices’ The Slinky Vagabond 5.6% (keg)
Creative Juices are both the smallest and newest brewery included in the tasting. Hailing from Rickmansworth, near Watford in Hertfordshire. They’ve been going since 2019 and have built up a cult following in their local area.
The Slinky Vagabond is their West Coast IPA. This beer is partnered with the next beer into a bit of a basic exploration of modern IPA. Talking about IPA in a tasting without falling into the (largely debunked) mythology is treacherous, so this will be shaped to be more of a jumping off point to talk about how the IPA category has developed in recent decades, rather than focussing too much on what was going on at the time of the Raj.
9. Mad Squirrel Roadkill 6.5% (keg)
The counterpoint to Creative Juices’ West Coast effort, Roadkill is a New England IPA. With its massive hop flavour and thick opaque body this is the beer that will (finally) bring the haze into the tasting.
Mad Squirrel is now Hertfordshire’s largest independent brewery and one that has made real strides in the recent years. They are a brewery which are predominantly known for the hazy and hop forward styles and Roadkill is a core range staple in their production cycle. The brewery has had a major presence at the festival every year for the last decade.
10. Vale Black Beauty 4.4% (cask)
Having done a significant run of hop-forward beers, we go back to the malt for the last two beers. The story of Porter and its rise, fall and rebirth is fascinating, and I relish an opportunity to dive into it, even if only superficially. Black Beauty is going to provide that opportunity.
Vale Brewery are based in Buckinghamshire and this year are featured on the stage bar, with a wide range of beers from various other producers. Black Beauty is a great, true to style porter, and should play well as a contrast the previous couple of brews.
11. Siren Craft Broken Dream 6.5% (cask)
The final beer in the event and a showstopper to finish on. Siren’s Broken Dream is a big, beautiful breakfast stout. Brewed with lactose, oats and coffee, its rich character provides a final sweet note to the evenings proceedings.
Siren are modern superstars of the British brewing industry and have had a meteoric rise since starting in2013. That rise was in part built off Broken Dream winning Supreme Champion Beer of Britain in 2018. The brewery now has major supermarket listings and four of their own venues and show no signs of slowing down any time soon. Including Broken Dream as the final beer felt wholly logical.
Although I am writing this before I have held the tasting, I am sure I will have had an excellent time hosting. Thank you to the St Albans Beer Festival team for the invite and best of luck for the rest of the festival.
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