Getting the beers in for 40,000

As the editor of CAMRA's annual Good Beer Guide, the question I'm most often asked about British beer is, "Why is it different from that of most other countries?" And the reason is that, almost uniquely, we still produce huge amounts of what we call ale - 93 per cent of all the beer in the world is lager, but about half the beer produced in Britain is still ale. We are the world's last remaining large ale-producing country.

I've been to this festival so many times now, but there's always a buzz when you walk in and see this enormous array of casks all round the hall, and the banners of all the different breweries. It's particularly exciting, because if you read most of the press you get the impression that ale is in decline. Nothing could be further from the truth, as you'll see. What has changed about the festival over the past four or five years is the astonishing number of women there ? right across the age range - who come for just a couple of halves. They don't come to get slaughtered. Which is another amazing thing I'd like to tell you - people don't fall down in great drunken heaps here, the behaviour is remarkably good. I don't recall the last time there was any trouble.

Very often in the evenings Olympia is absolutely mobbed out ? last year 42,000 came over five days. Yet it is all so informal. Olympia is a huge place, so people sit on the floor in circles and have a really great time. There's music at lunchtimes and evenings, and a room where children can have a good time while their parents go off to have a beer. The food has got better and better, you'll find traditional pub games, and also 200 beers from around the world. Because, despite its name, the Great British Beer Festival offers the consumer a window on to the whole world of quality beer.

The Great British Beer Festival 2001, Tue 31 Jul-Sat 4 Aug, Grand and National Halls, Olympia, Hammersmith Road, W14 (0870 739 7500).