New Century Hall, Manchester 17th-20th Janurary 2007. I wanted to go on the Thursday and Friday but bad weather meant my train from London to Manchester was diverted and I spent Thursday stranded in Birmingham. When I finally got there I was quite impressed, It nowhere near matched the size of the GBBF hence was far less intimidating but there were still a lot of beers. There were two rooms, in addititon to the main one there was one downstairs that opened in the evening containing the competition beers and barley wines.
I situated myself at a table in the 'family' area (where there were actually no families) and managed to sit there all day with the help of a new aquaintance. I met Jim when he asked me to save his seat whilst he went to get a beer, he turned out to be a really nice, interesting guy. James and Jay turned up later and we spent most of the day chatting to Jim who used to help run Milton Keynes CAMRA and told some great stories, he turned out to be the find of the festival. Had some good Beers too.
