Report on our First Beer Festival

North Cotswold Branch of the Campaign for Real Ale

First North Cotswold Beer Festival a Great Success!

The first North Cotswold Beer Festival held last weekend in glorious sunshine attracted crowds of 750 who sampled 40 different real ales and 9 ciders from national and local suppliers.

CAMRA members outnumbered by local Moreton in Marsh residents turned out in numbers on Friday Evening and all day Saturday basking outside the two marquees consumed all the Beer and Cider by closing time on Saturday evening allowing the Organisers to clear up rather earlier than planned by Sunday Lunchtime.

Some disappointed potential customers were redirected to local pubs on Sunday lunchtime but most customers, many of whom had stayed or camped throughout the weekend, had already rearranged their schedule or were sleeping off the previous evenings consumption. Some had come from as far afield as Cornwall and Yorkshire.

42 new members to CAMRA were recruited over the weekend including 17 from the North Cotswold area. This far exceeded our expectations and reflected the Wetherspoon’s offer to new members which was very popular. We welcome our new local members in particular and hope they will become active supporting our extensive social programme.

The local Band Zool performing both evenings from 8pm were very popular and clearly well supported by the local community.

Comment from many attendees was extremely positive in particular the variety and quality of the beers on offer and the good value food made and prepared by the Moreton Cricket Club caterers.

Thanks are due to Moreton Cricket Club who provided the venue with support from their staff and members stewarding the car parking and providing security. Also many thanks to the St Johns Ambulance for excellent support and we are very happy to report no accidents or incidents occurred. For our first effort it proved to be a very well run event that we are considering repeating next year with some improvements such as lunch time entertainment on the Saturday suggested by some people, perhaps Morris Dancers and /or a Brass Band.

Beers of the Festival were voted as follows:-

1^st. Whitstable Oyster Stout

2^nd. Dark Star Hophead

3^rd. Dark Star Summer Meltdown

Report by Roger Price

Photo Parade - Getting Ready on Friday