Presentation Night at The Cow & Plough

It was one of Leicester CAMRA Branch’s proudest nights on Friday 19^th May 2006. As well as being the Leicester beer Festival Staff Social, we spent the evening at The Cow & Plough in Oadby, in order to present awards to brewers whose beers were winners in this year’s Harry Cragg Beer Of The Festival.

    Sean O'Neil of Wicked Hathern

Our first award went to Wicked Hathern of Hathern for winning the Bitter Category with Earl Of Harrington Bitter. This award was accepted by Sean O’Neil . Sean said that having been brewing for seven years, this was the first award that they had ever won and were pleased to receive it.

The next award was presented to Barry Lount of The Steamin’ Billy Brewing Company and Will Davies of Grainstore Brewery of Oakham, for Steamin’ Billy Bitter winner of the best bitter category. Steamin’ Billy branded beers are brewed by Grainstore for The Steamin Billy Brewing Company.

    Will Davies of Grainstore (l) and Keith Williams 

The next awards were presented to Will Davies of Grainstore Brewery of Oakham for their Ten Fifty, winner of the Strong Beer category. He was also presented with a  second certificate for Ten Fifty as it also won the Bronze award overall.

Will commented that his father Tony would have liked to be present but was otherwise engaged. Tony is a long standing friend of Leicester CAMRA. He was Head Brewer at Ruddles for 17 years until they were bought out.

    Toni Hooper & Glenn Morris of Potbelly

Our final brewery of the night was Potbelly of Kettering. We brewed one of our festival specials at Potbelly ourselves in February. Potbelly took two awards for Beijing Black. It was winner of the Mild Category and the Gold Award Winner of The Harry Cragg Beer Of The Festival 2006. Toni Hooper and Glenn Morris accepted the awards, Toni said “We have been brewing for just over a year now, Leicester CAMRA have been very supportive to us in our first year. We pushed our first brew to get it in to Leicester Beer Festival last year and that gave us the start we needed”.

The final presentation of the night was for our 2006 Pub Of The Year. This is the second year that we have held a postal vote entitling all of our Branch Members to vote for their favourite three City pubs and three Country pubs, and the category with the more votes becoming overall Pub Of The Year. This year, for the second time, both awards went to The Cow & Plough, Gartree Road, Oadby. The awards were presented to Charlotte Lount, who has recently become a joint Licensee along with her Mum and Dad, Barry and Liz.

     Barry, Charlotte & Liz Lount

Charlotte thanked Leicester CAMRA and it’s Members for the awards and the loyal support given over many years. Barry also wanted it to be known that he hasn’t yet retired, but wanted his daughter to be a part of the family business. Barry created The Cow & Plough on the site of The Stoughton Farm Park, back in the early 1980’s. He supported small independent breweries then and has always maintained a high level of support to them. He said, “I believed in it 30 years ago and still do and am pleased to maintain a good relationship with Leicester CAMRA” I’m sure thet all of us at Leicester CAMRA feel the same towards Barry, his family and The Cow & Plough.

K Williams.

This page last updated: April 15, 2011

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