This weeks it's the Great British Beer Festival are Earls Court in London, and I'll be going there tomorrow. There will be over 600 different beers there, and a tonne of ciders too, and as with every year, I'll be drinking a lot of them. It's the best day of the year. It's fantastic. Tonnes of great beers.
 
So, I was wondering, have you guys been to any beer festivals, and what are your experiences with them?

Never been, but I have been severely drunk in Earls Court before, during other shows. Plastic beer glasses are deceptive somehow.  Busy this weekend :(
 
The ECTS show used to be there, I went twice and played some cool games I recall. I remember playing ZooL for the first time there, that memory sticks out strangely, Oh yea,, I remember now, I was given a shit load of merchandise for the game, loads of cuts of that little ninja dude/insect. ZooL obviously wasn't one of the good games. 

Well I'm American but let's just say that my dad makes his own moonshine, and he takes his brew serious. He's submitted his stuff to all sorts of county fairs with various levels of success.

I'd love to go to that, you can get really sick of the the same old Draught beers that thy serve in pubs, the closest thing to a beer festival that I've been to was a speciality bar. They served Erdinger (probably spelled wrong) in 1 litre glasses. 
Do you have to pay full price for the beers or does the admission give you a discount?
 
Edit: Bam, there it is...

600? That's quite the beer festival. I have been to a couple in Atlanta...but never anything on that scale. I also would LOVE it ciders were more widely available here, festival or not.

Never been to one. But I can share with you my all time favorite beer. Its some real world class stuff. Hitachino Nest, White ale. This is a Belgian style ale brewed by a small Japanese brewery. Its hard to find and expensive as hell, but damn good.