Quite how I've allowed the Great British Beer Festival to escape me for so long, I don't know. Having had my plans to visit Yorkshire this weekend scuppered (all the more painful as in this record-breaking heatwave - 100F? is someone taking the piss? - the rain they've had up there would have been most welcome) the discovery that the GBBF was on proved to be nothing short of a godsend.

Robin and I spent a very enjoyable Saturday afternoon in the sweatbox that is London Olympia sampling ales from across the country. And while all the prize-winning brews appeared to have been drunk by the time we got there, we were able to discover several beers worthy of tongue-time. Special mention has to go to Boggart Hole's Angel Hill. Any beer that shares a name with The World's Best Dog has to be good - and this Boggart didn't disappoint. Wentworth Gryphon, Storm Windgather and St George's Paragon Steam were also all notably drinkable. In all honesty, we didn't find a bad drink all afternoon.

I just wish these beers, and others like them, were more widely available. Adnams, Fuller's, Young's and the like are all well and good, and the Porterhouse brews some very special ales, but the variety of beers on offer in the parts of London I'm familiar with is shockingly limited. We need these special beers all over the place. I need these beers in my life. There's only so much London Pride a boy can drink.

Maybe that's why I took the ultimate beer geek oath of allegiance and signed up to Camra, the Campaign for Real Ale. They're doing good work battling the evils of Foster's and Tetley's and preserving the village pubs and independent breweries of Britain. I'll be proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with my fellow members, even the beardy ones with knitwear and a penchant for dodgy folk music (and that's just the women). Next year, I plan on making a much bigger deal of the Beer Festival and getting myself outside some Championship Ale.

But while this heat lasts, I'm not doing anything til I've had a nice, cold lager...