Memories of BeerX from two weeks ago are rapidly receding into the distance, but I received a reminder yesterday in the form of an Instagram story from beer educator Natalya Watson. So, better late than never, I thought I should write a post about it. 

BeerX is the annual trade show put on by SIBA, the Society of Independent Brewers. In recent years it has been held at the Liverpool Exhibition Centre. Last year was my first time attending as Bríd’s Cross was still in its embryonic stages at the time. This year I had more of an idea of what to expect. Essentially it is a trade show with lots of stalls run by various beer industry suppliers, a series of seminars and beer tasting sessions, a beer festival of SIBA award winners and finalists, the SIBA AGM, and a great networking opportunity.

Ruth and I have been making a conscious effort to get our daily step targets in and decided to take a very energetic walk from the train station down to the Docks where the event was taking place. Although it was great exercise wise, the bar hadn’t opened yet so we had a walk around to see what was on offer. We met up with beer writer and brewer Steve Dunkley who had managed to blag himself a beer, so we graciously accepted a third whilst we had a catch up before the seminars began. Whilst we were chatting, Matt Curtis popped by (making this the third time our paths had crossed in less than a week!). Matt took the opportunity to record a couple of vox pops with Steve and me for an upcoming podcast.

In between surveying the trade stands (including gazing wistfully at lots of shiny steel which isn’t in our budget for now), sampling some beers (it’s research – honest), and general networking we took in a few seminars and tasting sessions.

‘How to talk to journalists’ with Matt Curtis
Matt had mentioned the week before that he had a lot of information to get through in this seminar, so it was no surprise that he rattled through his presentation. That didn’t stop him from being interesting, informative, amusing and, most importantly, a clear communicator. Ruth and I picked up several useful tips, which I am sure will help us up our media game going forward. I also have to admit to cringing inwardly at one particular faux pas Matt mentioned and I have been guilty of – sorry Matt, if you’re reading.

‘Beer and Music pairing: Does sound affect flavour’ with Pete Brown
I’m familar with the concept of sound affecting flavour, having been a keen listener to the (sadly defunct) Rhythm ‘n’ Brew podcast. However, this was the first time I have been able to enjoy Pete Brown’s presentation. Pete is always an entertaining speaker and today was no exception. The practical element of this session was quite surprising in how greatly different music affected the flavour of the certain beers. My biggest take away though was that I need to drink Duvel while listening to the Pixies much more often!

‘Top tips on cask-conditioned beer’ with Eddie Gadd (Ramsgate Brewery) and Jon Stringer (Charles Faram)
As a newcomer to the world of professional brewing I certainly learnt a lot from this seminar. Feedback on the beers I have released so far has been good, but I have always believed that improvement is possible in all things. I’m looking forward to putting into practice some of the advice that Eddie and Jon shared and hope that this helps me take my beer to the next level in terms of quality.

‘A tasting of ON flavours’ with beer sommelier Natalya Watson
Several of my beery friends had reccomended Nat’s Virtual Beer School to me during the dark days of Covid and so I finally enrolled in the autumn of 2022. In the beer industry there is often a focus on ‘off’ flavours arising from faults in production or serving of beer. For this seminar Nat had put together tatsing kits consisting of everything from bread to foam bananas, cofee and spices. Once we had nibbled and sniffed at these, we set to tasting a range of beers to identify the flavours we could find in them. After the session, it was great to be able to have a proper chat with Nat, who I had previously only known through Zoom.

It was great to meet up with some familiar faces, whom I call friends, and also to meet new people – Ant from Wakey Wakey, Ken and Adam from Mysterious Brewing and Rob from the We Are Beer People podcast. We also saw several people across the crowded exhibition hall who we didn’t manage to catch up with – maybe next time.

After the two day trade show, we were up again early and setting off on the 200 mile trip down to Suffolk for the long weekend to visit family and drop off some beer at a few venues. Needless to say, we came away from the week exhausted, in a happy way…