If you enjoy reading please consider “buying me a pint”, this will help to cover my hosting and image hosting and help to ensure further trips can go ahead!
BUY ME A PINT
I spent a cracking Thursday afternoon at the Glasgow Real Ale Festival, held inside the impressive Briggait. It was a brilliant chance to sample beers from breweries across Scotland, including a few I don’t often come across back home. As always, though, the people really made the day. It was great meeting Emily, Alex and Will, catching up with Jenny and Kenny, and chatting with plenty of other friendly faces along the way. Senga the giraffe certainly stood out too! With a fantastic historic setting, plenty of good beer and lots of laughs, G-RAF was a great afternoon.
Glasgow Real Ale Festival
Thursday afternoon was spent at the Glasgow Real Ale Festival, or G-RAF, held inside the impressive Briggait in the heart of Glasgow. The festival in its current form first took place here in 2014, bringing a large CAMRA beer festival back to the city after a gap of almost 20 years. Run by volunteers from CAMRA – Glasgow and West of Scotland Branch, it brings together a fantastic selection of beers and plenty of people who share a love of a good pint.
One character you certainly couldn’t miss was Senga the giraffe! The giraffe has been associated with the Glasgow Real Ale Festival since its early days, thanks to G-RAF sounding rather like “giraffe”. For years the festival had a giraffe in illustrated form, before the mascot was finally brought to life as the full-size Senga in 2025. Her name was chosen through a charity competition supporting the Prince & Princess of Wales Hospice, and she now regularly appears at pubs and CAMRA events promoting both real ale and the festival.
As with so many beer festivals, though, it was the people who really made the afternoon. It was fantastic to meet Emily from Glasgow CAMRA, Alex from Realale Craft Beer Tayside, catch up with Jenny and Kenny from Real Ale Finder App, meet Will from South Cheshire Camra, and chat with many more people from Glasgow CAMRA and further afield. There was a really friendly atmosphere throughout, with plenty of good conversations and a few laughs along the way.
Of course, there was plenty of beer to sample too! I tried beers from Applecross Brewing Co., Isle of Eigg Brewery, Electric Village Brewery, Kinlochleven., Wasted Degrees, The Loch Ewe Brewing Company Ltd., Durty Brewing and Sulwath Brewery. It was a great chance to try a good mix of Scottish beers, including some from breweries I don’t get to see very often back home.
The Briggait itself makes a brilliant setting for the festival. Sitting close to the River Clyde, the grand building opened in 1873 as Glasgow’s Fish Market and remained an important part of the city’s fish trade for more than a century. Its huge market hall, high roof and historic ironwork give the festival bags of character and make it a pretty special place to enjoy a few beers.
A cracking Thursday afternoon of good beer, good company and plenty of laughs. A huge thank you to all the volunteers who put G-RAF together, and to everyone who stopped for a chat along the way.
Micropub Adventures 