Hinckley Beer Festival

Report of 2nd Annual Hinckley CAMRA Beer Festival

Text Box: Festival Tee & Polo Shirts

Sold Out!
Masonic Hall, St. Mary's Road, Hinckley

Thursday 10th - Saturday 12th September 2009

Champion Beer of the Festival

Parish Brewery, High Cross Ale
a 5% Festival Ale brewed especially for the occasion.

The Hinckley Tin Hat Legend

Facts & Figures of the Festival:

We had 1230 people through the door over the 3 days.
Over 3,500 pints of beer and over 500 pints of cider were consumed.
Although High Cross Ale, by Parish, was voted the Champion Beer of the Festival, the most popular beer, as far as amount consumed goes, was Tin Hat Ale, a 5% Festival Special by Tunnel Brewery - 18 gallons of which were consumed by early Saturday.
20 bottles of fruit wine were also consumed.
Over 40 branch members helped during the Festival giving a total of more than 600 hours of their time
26 new members were signed up during the festival, including Lucy Gutteridge who was our 200th branch member.
The surplus Token collection raised £229.85 for Westfield Community Centre - many thanks to everyone who contributed.

Click photos for larger image


Julian Saunders of Oak FM opens the 2nd Hinckley Festival	Julian enjoys a well deserved pint!	Various views of the LocAle bar			Buying a beer	Richard, the Secretary with Lucy Gutteridge our 200th member

Birds Eye View of Beer Festival Number Two.

Number 2 over then, and it only seems like a couple of weeks since the first one. The garage got emptied for a few days but I notice that it has once again filled up. With more beer and ciders to sell and an extra day it was always going to be interesting to see if it all went. Fortunately for the most part it did. The cider bar was in another room to the beer this year, along with the food, and some seating, and we think it helped to keep the circulation going. Both rooms at one point though were full to capacity, especially on Friday evening, but the bar staff all managed to keep the queues at bay.

From the cider bar the perries flew off the racking and were replaced and almost sold out again. The ciders were steadier. First off was the Gold medal winner Gwatkins Yarlington Mill cider, fortunately we had another barrel ready and waiting. Next and probably the most popular as a great session drink and especially with the ladies was Gwynt y Ddraig Malvern Hills Perry. That soon ran out to be replaced with Two Trees Perry which was equally popular. Their Pyder Farmhouse, an apple and pear mix, followed on and was replaced by Oldfield Perry. Gwatkins Blakeney Red and Stoke Red soon disappeared. The rest were all steady sellers and there were few pints left at the end. Thatchers Cheddar Valley (last year’s favourite) was slower this year, possibly because the Broadoak Bristol Port was an equally spectacular luminescent colour and a good drink. All in all a good selection (yes I did try them all).

Haven’t had the figures yet but I think we sold twice as much as last year. The fruit wines were much quicker off the mark this year and Saturday saw us running out well before the end of the evening, so some ladies had to resort to a perry.

Once again it was like one big party and we all enjoyed the banter and repartee, with people from all over the country. Judging by the compliments we got on the cider bar everyone enjoyed it. Not sure my feet did though.
Words by Rose Cooke

Click photos for larger image

Celia

The Cider Bar

Celia at the Bar

Getting Busy

Rose

Some of the volunteers:


Geoff's team	Jo	They can't all look happy all of the time!			It takes all sorts....	Les