Set the mood. Choose one of these beer festival party invitations to create and send your invitation.
Beer festivals are big business these days, but with supermarkets and offies increasingly stocking a huge range of bottled beers from all over the world it's now possible to recreate the festival vibe in the comfort of your own home. Invite a load of friends round, get a load of beers in, then get stuck into the drink while pretending it's actually a "cultural experience." The combination of lots of people and lots of beer means that you should make use of your garden if you’ve got one — far less potential for damage. If you're going to have people indoors instead, lock anything breakable in your bedroom, and keep a mop on hand for the inevitable spillages.
There are two ways you can do this: serious or silly. If you're looking to take things seriously, then the last thing you want to be thinking about is your getup. Obviously there are going to be spills, so don't wear anything too fancy — practicality is far more important.
On the other hand, if you want to have a bit more fun, get everyone to dress up as proper beer geeks. There are a number of vital components: 1) beards 2) bellies 3) chunky jumpers. Break out that bad knitwear, strap a cushion to your middle and spare the razor for a week or two. If you really want to go for it, kit yourself out in full morris dancer regalia and impress your friends with your hanky waving. Women are not traditionally part of the beer festival fraternity, so these costume rules (including the beard) apply to both girls and boys alike.
Your beer festival should involve drinking as many weird and wonderful beers as possible. Get everybody who is invited to bring six different bottled beers. Tell them to buy lots of different varietes (bitter, mild, stout, lager, wheat beer), and to look for interesting international flavours. If anyone shows up with boring, mass-market fizz, turn them straight back round again.
Give each guest a half-pint glass and get them to sample as many beers as possible. They should take fairly small quantities of each rather then drinking the whole bottle. At some point in the proceedings, you should get everybody to vote on the best and the worst beers on display. Whoever brought the best beer wins a prize, whereas the person who brought the worst lands a forfeit.
The perfect accompaniment to beer is a good quality sausage, grilled or barbecued, served in multi-grain roll with lashings of hot English mustard. Or a steak and kidney pie with thick gravy and flaky pastry. If you really can't be bothered to cook anything, just serve bowl after bowl of crisps, peanuts, pork scratchings and Twiglets.
| Hmmmm. Beer, maybe? That said, you will have to cater a little bit for those weirdoes who don't like beer and for any poor souls who have to drive. Have a small selection of ciders and a couple of bottles of wine. For the non-drinkers, serve some ginger beer. At least it has the right word in its name. |  |
| 1. | Born Slippy / Underworld |
| 2. | Soaked by the Ale / The Streets |
| 3. | Beer Barrel Polka / Glenn Miller |
| 4. | Hurry up Harry / Sham 69 |
| 5. | Drunk / Kylie Minogue
|
| 6. | The Wild Rover / The Pogues |
| 7. | Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers / ZZ Top |
| 8. | A Little Bitter / Alice in Chains |
| 9. | Cakes and Ale / June Tabor and Maddy Prior |
| 10. | Seven Drunken Nights / The Dubliners |
Drink Calculator