Annabel Smith

Annabel Smith is a freelance Beer Sommelier and is employed as a trainer, writer, consultant and public speaker to both the beer industry and consumers, under her company name BeerBelle.

She has worked in the beer industry in one form or another for almost 30 years. As an impoverished graduate, she started her love of beer by serving pints in a traditional cask ale house and grew to love the versatility, sociability and diversity of beer.

After 12 years of serving beer in pubs all over the UK, she branched out, and was employed by Guinness. She trained over 35,000 publicans worldwide how to pour the perfect pint of the Black Stuff. Her love of all things beer continued and she spotted a job for a fledgling organization called Cask Marque who required a beer taster and a training manager. During Annabel’s 10 years with Cask Marque she designed numerous training courses, tested thousands of samples of beer, and raised the awareness and love of cask beer through a relentless media campaign. This has included qualifying as one of the UK’s first Beer Sommeliers.

She is a founder member, and director, of Dea Latis, (www.dealatis.org.uk) a group formed to change women’s perceptions about beer and encourage more women to consider beer as a drink of choice.

Annabel is a member of the British Guild of Beer Writers, and sits on steering committees within the beer industry to advise how to raise the quality and perception of beer. 

In February 2017 she jointly won the Imbibe Educator of the Year Award.

She appears as a regular speaker at the BBC Good Food Show and the Ideal Home Exhibition and writes beer and food pairing features for The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian. She also writes a weekly blog called “Something for the Weekend” advising readers what beers to sample with their food.

She has featured in many national press articles and also been interviewed extensively on radio and television

Annabel has a particular passion for engaging females and non beer drinkers to ‘rethink’ how they perceive beer. This is achieved through events, media features and broadcasting.

Contact Details:

Mobile: 07920 058500

Landline: 01924 260826

Email: annabel@beerbelle.co.uk

Twitter: @CaskAnnabel

Web: www.beerbelle.co.uk