Keighley Beer Festival 2004 Report
THURSDAY 30th SEPTEMBER - SATURDAY 2ND OCTOBER
VICTORIA HALL, VICTORIA PARK, BRADFORD ROAD, KEIGHLEY
- OVER 60 REAL ALES
- FOREIGN BOTTLED BEERS
- TRADITIONAL CIDER
- HOT & COLD FOOD
- PUB GAMES & TOMBOLA
Opening Hours
- Thursday 5pm - 11pm
- Friday 11am - 11pm
- Saturday 11am - 10pm
LIVE MUSIC
- 8pm Friday: Duncan MacFarlane Band (Folk-Rock)
- 1pm Saturday: Hall Royd Brass Band
- 6pm Saturday: Bandiera Rossa (Celidh)
Admission
£2.00 after 6pm Thursday£3.00 after 6pm Friday
£2.00 all day Saturday
FREE entry at all other times
Keighley CAMRA's 2004 Beer Festival was held at Victoria Hall, Victoria Park on 30th September - 2nd October and was officially opened at 8pm on the Thursday by Christine Clancy of the Calendar girls who gave a very interesting speech about how the idea of posing naked for a Calendar in aid of Leukaemia research began and how successful it has been since. Calendars were on sale throughout the festival and customers were given the option of donating their unused beer tokens to the charity on leaving. Many did and £300 was donated from the beer tokens alone. Many Calendars were sold too. Thanks to Andy Grant for arranging for Christine to come.
On Friday night the Duncan Macfarlane Band provided the entertainment, a sort of Folk-Rock fusion and were well enjoyed, particularly by a group of people from Leeds, who told me afterwards they came in at Lunchtime and stayed all day just to see them!
Saturday Lunchtime's entertainment was the Hall Royd Brass Band who played lots of favourites and customers commented on their survey forms how nice it was to have some laid back live entertainment at lunchtime.
Saturday night was old favourites Bandiera Rossa, a Celidh band who went down very well and a few customers felt the urge to get up and dance on the large open dance floor!
To the Beer - 85 beers turned up of which 84 were eventually saleable. 74 went on at the start (5pm on Thursday) and by 11am on Saturday 72 beers were on. By 4.30pm we had 58 left running and throughout the early evening a good selection was left, particularly in the locals bar, until about 7.30pm. At the 10pm closing time we had only 13 beers left running. An excellent effort by bar managers Colleen Holiday and deputy "Fletch". An interesting selection of Foreign beer and Cider was available throughout to supplement the draught beers. Thanks to Doug Smith and Fred Baker for this.
Our main festival sponsors were Copper Dragon Brewery of Skipton, who supplied the festival T-shirts and the glossy professional promotional leaflets seen around local and far flung pubs in the run up to the festival. They had their own bar, and their beer proved so popular that it would have sold out on Friday night if they hadn't restocked in time for Saturday!
Over the course of the festival 1382 people visited; the highest number since our return to Victoria Hall in 2001. More beer was drunk too, with 753 gallons being supped! Beer of the Festival chosen by the festival visitors on their survey forms was Oakham Atilla, the strongest draught beer at 7.6%. This was a late addition to the beer list and consequently did not appear in the programme! We are going down to Peterborough to present a commemorative plaque to the Brewery on January the 15th 2005. This is a welcome return visit to Peterborough for us as Oakham won in 2001 with their JHB. 2002 winner was Triple fff with Pressed Rat and Warthog and last year's winner was Wharfedale Folly Ale.
A Free Bus service to the Bus and Railway Stations and on request to various pubs in Keighley was provided by Keighley Community Transport and sponsored by Keighley Town Council.
Other sponsors were Market Town Taverns, Timothy Taylors Brewery who sponsored the programme, the Brown Cow in Keighley who sponsored the printing of the beer tokens, the Grove in Leeds who sponsored the Eastwood and Sanders 1872 Porter, the Turkey Inn at Goose Eye who sponsored a firkin of their Turkey Bitter and a meal for two at the pub to raffle, the Hart's Head at Giggleswick who gave us a meal for two at the pub to raffle and Keighley News who gave us press coverage before, during and after the festival. Thanks to our sponsorship and publicity manager, Veronica Burningham for arranging all this. Thanks to Fred and Tony for taking so many posters out to the pubs.
Thanks also to Richard Candeland for writing the programme and doing the Staffing Officer's job as well. Thanks to Lynda Smith for ordering the beer, Tony Davies for doing the Treasurer's job, Jenny Baker for doing the products and Ken Armitage for doing the Tombola. Thanks to Mick Farrar for running the glasses stand and Dave Sanders for picking them up from CAMRA HQ., Ruggie and Jeremy for counting the beans and last but by no means least, all the CAMRA members from Keighley and Craven and other adjoining branches for giving up their time to come and staff the festival.
