Welcome to Keighley and Craven CAMRA
Announcing Keighley Beer Festival 2010
The 22nd Keighley Beer Festival is now less than three months away. Again at Victoria Hall from 23rd to 25th September, the event will feature a wide range of real ales from across the country alongside ciders, perries and bottled beers from abroad. Click here for more details.
A Trio of award-winning Ribblesdale pubs
Over the past couple of months, three Ribblesdale pubs have been presented with awards for services to Real Ale:
Following the final round of judging back in the spring, the Maypole, Long Preston came out top in the Keighley and Craven Branch Pub of the Year 2010 competition. The Maypole has been in the capable hands of Robert and Elspeth Palmer for over 26 years.
Four miles upstream in Settle, Thirteen Café Bar wins an Improved Pub Award. Christine and Robert have gone to great efforts to provide not one but two real ales in this market-town café.
Finally, across the river in Giggleswick is our Summer 2010 Pub of the Season, the Hart's Head, Giggleswick, a family-run village pub with possibly the best range of cask ales in the west of the branch area.
Celebrate Mild this May....and beyond
May is CAMRA's National Mild Month. To celebrate, members of the branch had a tour of Keighley town centre pubs on Saturday 8th May (National Mild Day) to sample some of the Mild beers on offer. Thirteen pubs were visitied (although only two branch members managed them all). Many samples of Timothy Taylor Golden Best were consumed. This is an excellent example of a Pennine light mild and is found in all Taylors tied houses in the town. Over and above that, special thanks go to the Livery Rooms, the Cricketers and the Brown Cow who made extra effort and provided us with something different: Goose Eye Moorland Mild and Elgoods Black Dog in the Livery Rooms, Ilkely Black and Salamander Anubis Mild in the Cricketers (with Moorhouses Black Cat and Kelham Island Night Moves waiting in the cellar) and Bridgehouse Dark Mild in the Brown Cow. Taylors Dark Mild was also available as an alternative in the Brown Cow and Boltmakers. If you missed the event, look out for mild throughout the year in the regular mild outlets in the Keighley and Craven area. To find out more about Mild and to see what's happening nationally, click here.
Skipton Beer Festival 2010
The 4th Skipton Beer Festival, held over the weekend 22nd to 24th April, was a runaway success. Over 1850 customers came from far and wide (including a group from Sweden) to sample the 70 or so real ales, ciders and German and Belgian bottled beers on offer.
By the time the festival closed on Saturday evening, only a few gallons of cask beer remained, the cider had all gone and there was less than a crate of German beer left.Over 40 new members signed up to the Campaign and over £1000 was raised for the Mayor's charities. Beer of the Festival as voted by the customers was Millstone True Grit from Mossley near Oldham with Southport Golden Sands coming a close second.
The organisers would like to thank the hard-working volunteers who gave their time, energy and enthusiasm to stage another successful beer festival in Skipton and thanks also to the customers who created such a fantastic atmosphere.
Pub of the Season Spring 2010
Keighley and Craven Branch Pub of the Season Spring 2010 has been awarded to the Narrow Boat, Market Town Tavern's Skipton outlet. This is the sixth time the pub has won the award.
Pub of the Season Winter 2009/2010
Keighley and Craven Branch Pub of the Season Winter 2009/2010 has been awarded to the Boltmakers in Keighley. This is the third time that Phil and Val Booth have won the award in the (nearly) 5 years they have been running the pub. Quite an achievement!
More awards for Taylors
Local brewer, Timothy Taylor has scooped a couple more awards, though this time it wasn't for the quality of their beers! Read more...
Alesman revamp
Regular readers of the Branch newsletter, Alesman, will have noticed a few changes in the last few issues. Starting with the Spring 2009 issue, Alesman has featured more photographs and several pages in colour. If you don't get to see Alesman regularly, why not take out a subscription? New advertisers are always welcome - our rates are very competitive!
LocALE takes off
Our LocALE campaign to promote locally brewed beer was launched in September 2008. Like any campaign, it started small, but more and more pubs are joining in.
To find out which pubs are actively supporting locally brewed beers, click here.
To find out more about Keighley and Craven's LocALE campaign, click here.
