CBAS is 1 year old

The good people of Cheshire Life have asked me to write a short piece about CBAS. It’s a useful reminder of what CBAS is about and the coming birthday celebration.

The Chester Beer Appreciation Society – CBAS to our friends, family and lovers – has a simple mission: to discover new pubs, explore beer, meet new and interesting people and enjoy ourselves. The inaugural CBAS meeting took place on 1^st November 2011 at the Artichoke Café Bar Bistro in Chester’s decadent canal quarter.  A slow trickle of CBAS members gradually became a shoal, with a whopping twenty-one people turning up on the first night. We’ve not looked back since.

We sowed the seeds of CBAS one summer’s night at the legendary Royal Oak public house in Hoole, Chester.  While enjoying a rare spot of good weather, my friend, Ben, and I began to reminisce about the after-work beer culture of the dirty city that some call London. Could we replicate that magical formula in Chester? After a couple of hours, and pints, spent contemplating this question, we stumbled upon the formula for CBAS….

1) We will form an open invitation beer society that meets in Chester whenever the moon is full – or the first Tuesday of each month – to celebrate our love of beer.

2) We will use our collective bargaining power to negotiate with pub/bar owners to a) showcase new beers or run themed evenings, and/or secure discounts on beer/food that are then passed onto the group.

3) We will make no profit from CBAS.

4) We will do this purely because we like to meet new people, try new things and get out occasionally.

A very lofty ambition, I hear you say, and you’d be right. There’s been a lot of hard graft and quite a few knock backs, but we have persevered. We’re now lining up our twelfth club night, which also happens to be our birthday bash – more to come on that in a bit. We’ve visited many pubs, enjoyed many varieties of beer – including beer paired with food – and made many, many friends.  And we organised Chester’s first ever #Twissup – it’s a combination of Twitter and pis… I don’t really need to explain that one to you do I, my dear educated reader. In short, we’ve played a small part in Chester’s beer and pub renaissance. We like to think that we’ve helped pubs and bars to raise their game, but don’t just take our word for it. As Alex Haycraft – owner of the Kash Tap Rooms – puts it *I can’t imagine Chester without CBAS*.

So where are we now, I hear you ask? We recently brewed our very first CBAS beer with our good friends at the Blueball Brewery, which will form the centrepiece of our first birthday celebrations on Friday 9th November. Six pubs – Telfords, Brewery Tap, Pied Bull, Artichoke, the Cellar and Kash – will have the CBAS celebration IPA on draft. The beer will be delivered by barge on Saturday 3rd November. It would be good to see a few people there to welcome the beer. We’ll be at Artichoke and the Cellar at 1pm and then at Telfords about 3pm. There should be some press there, too, so try to look your best, darlings.

As for the birthday night, the idea is for people to pop into one or more of these pubs to sup this beer before meeting up at the Kash Tap Rooms at 9.30pm. Alex, the owner, has kindly agreed to lay on a buffet and we’re sure there will be a few discounts on offer, too. We’re starting at Telfords at 7.30pm; care to join us? As always, anyone and everyone is welcome.

Cheers, Andy