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Leicester Beer Festival 2008 ReportThe annual four day Leicester Beer Festival started off on Wednesday 12th March 2008 at 5pm at The Charotar Patidar Samaj, the same venue that has been so successful for the previous 7 years. The festival this year featured 87 different breweries and 205 different beers, amounting to a colossal 18536 pints along with 30 perrys and ciders. Beers were sourced from all of the Leicestershire & Rutland breweries which featured on our new LocAle bar, with some of the newest and smallest micro-breweries from our neighbouring counties featuring on the Guest Ales bars. Bees Brewery from Queniborough made its first ever beer festival appearance and come away winning the Porter/Stout category with its 5% Wobble Stout. 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. Another record-breaking attendance saw 4503 people attend during the duration of the Festival (5% up on last year) and beer consumption was up slightly on last year. Friday was again the busiest day with some people having to wait a short while outside due to our hall capacity being reached. We apologise for this and 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 a slightly increased beer order again on last year, we opened on Saturday with a big choice of beers so that we would not run out. Indeed, we closed with 42 beers left on to maintain choice right to the end. Everards again had their brewery bar at the festival and launched their new beer ‘Hazy Daze’. The improved 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 600 Pork Pies alone as the popularity of these from Lanes Butchers on King Richards Road increases, people were also very complimentary about the cobs as well which were sourced from Ethels Bakery for the first time. 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 all of our advertisers and brewers of festival specials. Also, The Leicester Mercury and ITV East Midlands News for their coverage of the event. Also, our main beer agency suppliers: Boggart, Beer My Guest and Shardlow for supplying some fantastic beers. Leicester Mercury article 14 March. Our Sub Branch - Hinckley & Bosworth 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 sub branch members. Thanks also to the Red Cross who provided first aid cover for the festival. Andy
Sales. Leicester Beer Festival 2008The Harry Cragg "Beer of the Festival" sponsored by the Foxton Locks InnThe ninth Leicester Beer Festival opened on Wednesday 12th 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 nine tables and tasted 6 beers each totalling 54 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. 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
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