Once upon a time at a typewriter¹ far, far, away; but not too far from a bath. Indeed the exact location was 'on the blueish, green third planet orbiting an insignificant yellow sun, in unfashionable Western spiral arm of the Galaxy'².A bipedal ape descendent, who for now we will keep anonymous, finished a script for a radio show. He called it the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy; this title he dreamt up while lying on his back in a field whilst on a hitch-hiking tour of Europe on a starry night. Little did he know then that 21 years later a few fields on a web page would be planted and h2g2 as we fondly know it was created. It appeared on the BBC's Tomorrow's World programme and an phenomenum was born. This came to be known as the first Great Crawl³.

Rumour also has it that back then Mark's beard was merely stubble, Peta was a mere researcher, and Abi was whoever she felt like being that particular day, or hour.

Well a little after this fledgeling sites first Birthday, and a few days before a celebratory Real Life meet up in London, the magic number of 42042⁴ researchers were now registered with the Guide. So a Beer Festival was set up because nothing seems to draw together researchers quicker than a good pint or glass of Beer. It was also a beer festival in honour of all the German Researchers who helped accelerate⁵ the guide to this landmark.