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18^th Moreton Beer Festival Report September 12^th to 13^th2025

North Cotswold Branch of the Campaign for Real Ale

The North Cotswold branch of CAMRA staged the 18^th festival at Moreton Cricket Club on the weekend of 12/13^th September. After some typical wet and windy British weather in the lead up to the festival we were blessed with some fine sunshine on both days. 1,250 festival goers were welcomed at the lovely surrounds of Moreton Cricket Club. A range of 36 beers were available from breweries throughout the country and 10 local beers gave us a fine line up of 46 casks. Thanks to the beer selection team and the Good Beer Company. The beer styles included pale ale, bitters, IPA, stouts and pilsner.	^ Beer set up as seen early Friday ^
^ Ciders & Perry early on Friday ^	A broad range of 20 ciders and Perry came from local cider producers chosen by our Cider coordinator James Fry. In total 66 choices of beer and ciders for drinkers to enjoy.
Friday opened at 11am and the crowds built up, tasting the range of quality ale and ciders. CAMRA members from near and far turned out in force, many who had attended most of the previous festivals. The Cricket field soon filled up with campers who added to the customer numbers. There were some short lived heavy showers in the evening, which saw drinkers heading inside the marquee until the rain stopped. >>>>> Paige and Red Shift entertained the crowds in the evening. Throughout the weekend Oink Catering provided extensive food offering which was very popular and the Cricket Club BBQ providing breakfasts for staff and campers, thanks to the local festival team for providing this.
	<<< Saturday saw better weather. More campers and caravans arrived for the Saturday 11am opening. In the early afternoon our Festival Director is seen introducing one of the day’s bands.
A good crowd of locals were entertained by Blunderbuss and Mojo in the afternoon sunshine. >>>>
	<<<< Regular local band The Dropouts rocked the crowds in the evening to end the festival on a high.
The first beer to run out early on Saturday was Biscoff Stout from North Riding Brewery in Scarborough, winning Beer of the Festival. >>>>
	<< The local Beer of the Festival was Hook Norton’s Tower Ale.
This year’s Cider and Perry bar offered 16 boxes of cider and 4 boxes of perry. Which is a total of 680 pints, as the box of dry was only 10l. All the cider and perry was from within the 3 counties and the closest to Moreton was the two products from the hometown Pearsons Cider. Pleasingly the first box to sell out was the Blush medium sweet cider from Pearsons. Seen right lower >>> The cider that won “best by judges” was Greggs Pitt medium blended Kingston Black and Browns Apple. A full flavoured and well-balanced genuine vintage cider. Vintage because both varieties of apple used are historically old varieties. The bar was well staffed with the regular and reliable Angela and both Carols. Guest appearance to staff was the Old Stag Cider team of Paul and Kerry. Great to have a cider maker serving and answer the questions of some interested punters. Old Stag’s Oak Cask sold out in second place. See right upper. At end of play all the cider sold out, so a great success all round.
	Thanks to all our great helpers, sponsors and to Moreton Cricket Club for the venue, we celebrated the sponsorship of our festival shirts with a visit from Joe and Dan from North Cotswold Brewery for a team photo. Fifteen CAMRA members were signed up over the weekend. Thanks to the team who worked tirelessly on Sunday morning packing up the empty barrels, racking for collection, and clearing the site.
Many thanks to all for a great festival, come back next year for the 19^th Festival on 11/12^th September 2026.

Report by: Martin Jones, Moreton Festival Director. Photos by Martin & Peter Rowe, Web Master