CRAFT beer is all about striking the right balance between complexity, flavour and finish.

It's made in small quantities with the best ingredients, and the quality should be matched with a variety of flavours beyond the traditional boundaries of larger breweries.

America was the catalyst for these specialist beers and with the market flourishing, the Great British Beer Festival (August 13-17, Olympia, London, gbbf.org.uk) is a golden opportunity to sample more than 800 real ales and foreign beers from around the world.

Competition between brewers is also driving up quality and innovation which means a greater range of tastes and beer styles for drinkers.

Bath Ales Wild Hare (£2.08, 5% abv, 50cl, Tesco) is smooth, crisp and refreshing, made with organically grown pale ale malt and non-organic English hops and boasting beautifully fresh citrus, hoppy aromas with a dry, bitter finish.

Camden Town Brewery is one of London's most exciting breweries and Mark Dredge, author of Craft Beer World (A Guide to 350 of the Finest Beers Known to Man) cites Camden Town Hells Lager (£1.50 from £1.89, from now until August 25, 4.6% abv, 33cl, Waitrose) as "Britain's best lager".

A year-round brew but perfect for summer, the crisp, dry body is styled on a German Pilsner with a broad range of fruit and hops that give it the robust flavour that helped crown it Champion Keg Lager at the International Brewing Awards 2013.

Aberdeen-based Brewdog go from strength to strength (literally), and hop heads can't seem to get enough of their cheeky labelling and deeply flavoured beers.

Brewdog Punk IPA (£1.69, 5.6% abv, 33cl, brewdog.com) is a safe choice from their core range, but the Scottish brewers have just launched Hello, My Name is Metter Marit (£2.89, 8.2% abv, 33cl, brewdog.com) at double the usual abv in an Indian pale ale.

Flavoured with Norwegian lingonberries, the aromas of red berries, complex malt and hops - with bags more hops and an underlying bitter sweetness on the finish - sends the taste-buds into a wild frenzy.

Hot on its heels, Innis & Gunn have released their second seasonal launch, Innis & Gunn Scottish Pale Ale (£2.25, 7% abv, 33cl, innisandgunn.com). A golden ale that's well balanced with fresh, floral citrus notes and a generous hoppy mouthfeel, it finishes with a beguiling biscuity, toasty note.

There's kudos attached to creating a really great India Pale Ale (after all, the heavily hopped content sustained the British Raj by surviving for weeks at sea) and micro brewery Meantime use heaps of Golding hops in their Meantime London Pale Ale (£1.79, 4.3% abv, 33cl, Sainsbury's).

Uber-refreshing with a biscuity maltiness, citrusy profile and a bitter edge, it's bursting with aromas and is surely the bees-knees in IPA.

When it comes to brewing beer, the components are refreshingly simple - malted barley, hops, water and yeast. In reality though, it's a complicated process and the delights of a prize pint can inspire beer bloggers such as Simon Martin (known to many as YouTube beer reviewer 'Real Ale Guide') to link up with Welsh brewer Brains Craft Brewery to create Barry Island IPA (£1.77, 6%, 33cl, Tesco).

Styled on an American IPA (a beer around 6-8% abv), it's deliciously fresh, and vibrantly hoppy with clean citrus flavours steering to a bold bitterness on the finish.

Tapping into the trend for Citra American hops, Cambridgeshire brewery Oakham Ales have created Citra IPA (£2.59, 4.9% abv, 5.68cl, Marks & Spencer).

Soft and very fruity, an initial sweetness leads to a full-flavoured mouthfeel with a lingering malty bitterness that will leave beer lovers anxious for the next round.

Among the many stands, visitors to the Great British Beer Festival should certainly check out Windsor & Eton Brewery who will be showing their Eton Boatman. First brewed to commemorate the Olympic Regatta at Eton Dorney last year, this is a glorious 4.3% abv golden ale made with Citra and Galaxy hops for a citrusy/soft fruit flavour.

Such is the quality of their bottled beers, Windsor & Eton's 300-bottle limited edition tribute to Prince George, Windsor Cot (originally brewed as Windsor Knot for Kate and Will's wedding) has already sold out.

However, you can still toast the Royal birth with another of their award-winning beers, available on-line at webrew.co.uk and in Waitrose nationwide.