Spirits high at Great British Beer Festival

The Great British Beer Festival served the first of an estimated 300,000 weird and wonderful pints from across the globe on Tuesday as a London exhibition hall was transformed into the biggest pub in the world.

Cheerful punters tasted the 700 different real ales, ciders, perries, and bottled beers available at Earl's Court during the five-day event, Britain's answer to Munich's Oktoberfest only with a bigger range of beer.

Real ale veterans, curious first-timers and those out to get stupendously drunk on Britain's finest-tasting beers poured into the cavernous hall as a Scottish bagpipe band brayed out a noisy welcome.