Festival 'analysis paralysis'

A recent article over at Beer Birra Bier about beer festival strategy got me thinking. I know some beery bods who do treat festivals as if they were a military operation; notepad, pen/pencil, PDA/smartphone, water bottle, festival glass, spare glass, spare pen/pencil, bubble wrap for bottle purchases. A beer list cross-referenced to ratebeer/beer advocate/their own tick list. With coloured highlights to show rare/strong/foreign beers. With an annotated arena map to identify the optimal seating area; equidistant from the key bars, close enough but not too close to the loos, away from the band/the t-shirt stall/the grumpy old soaks who moan about the demise of British bitter.

Yes, I know these denizens of planning. I used to be one of them.

Why did I change? After all, I'm a natural born planner. Analysis may as well be my professional middle name. Perhaps it's because of those times when I was waiting at a bar to be served, listening to the protestations of other scoopers, watching them succumb to analysis paralysis. Too many beers on their list. Unable to make a decision on which to buy. A purchasing system thrown out by a beer not being ready/running out/never arriving.

I've seen scoopers spend a miserable half-hour trying to commit to buying a beer as their first, second and third choice beers fail to materialise. Seen them squabble over the last halfpint, plead to try green beer or the dregs of a titled cask.

I've set myself free from the tyranny of beer festival planning to the minutiae. Yes, I still have a broad-brush plan for GBBF. It goes like this;

- start with some kind of draught gueze/kriek
- chew the fat with whoever serves me and see what they think of the foreign beers on offer
- buy a US beer by a brewer that I've never heard of before
- ask around the tables to see what's going down well
- go with the flow. And don't forget to buy sausage and mash

Free your mind and the hops will follow. I hope...