On Saturday 12th November there was a CAMRA Tasting Panel Session in the Notley Room in the White Rock Hotel, Hastings. Due to this being arranged on the same day as a Regional Meeting (this was to be online at 10am) Kevin Travers, Mick Bell and I attended this meeting on line before setting up the room. (prior to the pandemic this was never thought possible!!).
Both Kevin (Surrey Area Organiser and Regional CBOB/Tasting Panel Coordintor and Mick (CAMRA Trained Tasting Trainer and Surrey Tasting Panel Chair) had travelled down from deepest Hampshire & Surrey to present the tasting session.
There were 11 participants ranging from very local to coming from Sedlescombe, Shoreham, Hove, Eastbourne and Bexhill.
The session started at 1pm with a quick introduction and explanation of what to be expected from the session and then we all introduced ourselves – experiences and expectations differed enormously. Slide presentation, as well as documents, followed before the serious part of tasting OFF flavours!!! This eventually ended in tasting numerous glasses of beer with these taste elements emphasised! We used pipettes for these sections.
Eventually it was time to learn about entering data about what we are tasting to tasting cards which were then introduced – at this point real ales were sampled (half pint). Ranging from a Green Hopped Hoppers Ale, Rother Valley – Sussex Best Bitter from Long Man and Limehouse Porter from Listers. The fourth beer was Gun Milk Stout – this replaced the Limehouse Porter on the bar.
The session ended at 6pm with all congratulating Kevin and Mick for this entertaining, educational excellent event!
Kris Cymer popped in at the start to welcome all before returning to work. He is hoping this session will result in more members filling in tasting cards (online mostly). The Local Tasting Panel will then be up and running.
If you missed this session and would like to get involved there is another training session just over the border in Kent on 10th December and Kevin is happy to arrange further training whenever there is enough interest. Full details of all future events can be found here: Taste Training and Beer Judging - CAMRA - Campaign for Real Ale

Peter Page-Mitchell (Sussex Area Organiser, Brewery Liaison Co-Ordinator and a member of Southeast Sussex Branch).