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Leicester Beer Festival 2009 Report
The annual four day Leicester Beer Festival started off on Wednesday 11th March 2009 at 5pm at The Charotar Patidar Samaj, the same venue that has been so successful for the previous 8 years. The festival this year featured 94 different breweries and 215 different beers, amounting to a colossal 18832 pints along with 30 perrys and ciders.
L-R. Set up Sunday with our hired van and Monday after all beer had arrived. Beers were sourced from all of the Leicestershire & Rutland breweries and as many breweries as possible that are within 25 miles on our LocAle bar. Our Guest Ales bar featured 128 beers from some of the newest and smallest micro-breweries along with some very popular breweries such as Thornbridge and Brewdog. The Harry Cragg “Beer of the Festival” sponsored by The Foxton Locks Inn judging was carried out on the Wednesday night using tasting panels and invited guests. See results below.
L-R Our regular customers arrive, Glasses Team, Super Strong beer table judges, The Final judges table. Another record-breaking attendance saw 4982 people attend during the duration of the Festival (10.64% up on last year) and beer consumption was up considerably (18%). Friday was again the busiest day with over 2000 people visiting over the duration of the day. Some people had to wait a while outside in the evening due to our hall capacity being reached. We apologise for this and appreciate your patience, we are still actively seeking a larger venue despite most people telling us they want to stay at the Charotar because they like it so much. With the same beer order as last year, it became apparent to me that more beer was needed and I arranged a top up delivery on Friday afternoon. This meant that the total beer order increased to 19624 pints during the event. We opened on Saturday with a big choice of beers so that we would not run out, indeed we closed with 22 beers left on to maintain choice right to the end. The first beer to run out was Halfpenny Brewery - Thames Tickler early on Thursday.
L-R Pat Keogh, 80 years and still going strong, friendly bar staff, and Friday night. The Cider and Perry Bar had a choice of 29 Ciders and Perries to start with and saw similar growth to the beer bars and another order was placed to bring an extra 12 in on Saturday morning. The first Cider to run out was Westcroft - Janet's Jungle Juice. The authentic Indian curries were a real success and our traditional English food counter manned by CAMRA volunteers was busy as always. Indeed we got through 500 Pork Pies alone as the popularity of these from Lanes Butchers on King Richards Road. Sadly Lanes closed the week after the festival as nobody wanted the business after the brothers retired. People were also very complimentary about the cobs which were sourced from Ethels Bakery. Once again we collected for LOROS by means of collection buckets - Thank You. We would like to thank everyone who attended for making the event so successful. We would also like to thank our main sponsor, Everards, and our LocAle main sponsors Belvoir, Rugby, Castle Rock and Potbelly breweries. Also thanks to all of our advertisers and brewers of festival specials. Also, our main beer agency suppliers: Boggart, Beer My Guest, Shardlow and Fugelestou Breweries for supplying some fantastic beers. Indeed special thanks to Nev at Shardlow who supplied all of the Cider and Perry, including the last minute re-order. Rob at Beer My Guest also for an emergency beer supply! Hinckley & Bosworth CAMRA Festival Report The festival committee would like to thank all the volunteers who worked throughout the event and made it another complete success, including the Hinckley & Bosworth Branch members. Thanks also to the Red Cross who provided first aid cover for the festival.
The End - Sunday take down - thank you everyone. See you next year! Andy
Sales. Leicester Beer Festival 2009The Harry Cragg "Beer of the Festival" sponsored by the Foxton Locks InnThe tenth Leicester Beer Festival opened on Wednesday 11th March 2008 at 5pm. Once again, the opportunity was taken to judge the Harry Cragg “Beer of the Festival” by using a mixture of experienced tasters and volunteers. This year the tasters were split over eight tables and tasted 6 or 7 beers each totalling 52 beers. All beers were selected prior to opening for quality and category grouping by two senior members of the Leicester Tasting panel. Nearly all of the beers conform to the Champion Beer of Britain criteria for nomination through the Branch. Castle Rock have announced that they are now making their Screech Owl permanent in the Swan in the Rushes, Loughborough as a result of their win. Congratulations to all the winners, we will try and arrange presentations over the next few months for as many of the winners as we can. Winners
Individual category winnersMild
Bitter
Best Bitter
Strong Bitter
Porter/Stout
Golden Ale
Super Strong Beers
Speciality Beers
Beer of the Festival Presentations Beer Festival Workers Social and "Beer of the festival" awards Sat 25th July 2009. Our coach arrived in Humberstone Gate for a 9.30 departure with the Hinckley & Bosworth members already on board. With approximately 45 people on board and a reasonable day forecast we set off for Yorkshire. The day was to serve two purposes, a thank you day out for our hard working festival volunteers and a chance to present some awards for our "2009 Beer of the Festival". The Old Spot Brewery in Cullingworth near Bradford was our winner this year but the brewery is on a farm and was unable to cater for us. It was suggested by the brewer and owner; Julian Hargreaves that we could have the presentation at the Saltaire Brewery in Shipley. This tied in very nicely as they too won two awards at our festival and they were duly contacted and agreed to host the event. We arrived just before lunchtime and made our way to the brewery on foot. The Saltaire Brewery is based in a Victorian former electricity generating room for the Shipley Tram system. A Victorian shell but a very modern 20BBL brewery sits inside supplied by Mosechle of Germany. On the bar was Saltaire Raspberry Blonde 4.0%, Winner of our "Speciality Beer" Category and their new Empress IPA 5.0%. To complement these was our "Beer of the Festival" - Old Spot Breweries Spot O' Bother 5.5% and Light but Dark 4.2%. The other award presented was for Saltaire Triple Chocoholic, 2nd in the Porter / Stout Category and sadly not available during our visit.
L-R Saltaire Brewery, Andy Sales presents Tony Stephenson from Saltaire with 1st prize for Raspberry Blonde, Andy Sales presents Julian Hargreaves with Beer of the Festival, the awards. Pictures Keith Williams.
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