Keighley Beer, Cider & Perry Festival 2005 - Report

Keighley Beer Cider & Perry Festival 2005Keighley Beer, Cider and Perry Festival at Victoria Hall was a resounding success this year with both attendance and beer sales up on last year. 1441 people came through the doors over the 3 days of the Festival at the end of September and over 6000 pints of Real Ale were consumed. On top of this we sold out of Cider for the first time ever! We are not sure whether this was due to the change of name or due to a general upturn in the popularity of traditional cider? Four pubs in Keighley now regularly stock traditional cider and eight in our branch area.

An excellent beer range was ordered, with 86 beers being on sale over the course of the festival and no less than six beers specially brewed for the festival,

Fernandes Top Withens and Naylors Fred's Festival F'tang F'tang (named after your illustrious Alesman editor!) selling out on the Friday Night. There was a good range right to the end though, with 52 beers available at 4pm Saturday and 17 left running at 11pm closing. Old Spot Brewery from Cullingworth made their Festival Debut with "Lift Off" and "Dogs in't barrel" and new beers were available from Salamander, Little Valley and Naylors. We were delighted to have the Goose Eye "Charter Ale" available at the festival to commemorate the 700th anniversary of Keighley being granted a town charter and the Town Mayor, Tony Wright, was there on the Thursday Night to launch it. The Mayor's charity, Multiple Sclerosis, was the designated festival charity and in excess of £300 was raised through voluntary donations of unused beer tokens from customers.

On the Foreign beer bar there was a good selection of American beers alongside the German and Czech bottles. British Real Ale in a bottle has really taken off in the last few years and a selection of these were also featured with tasting notes in the programme.

On Friday lunchtime we had a blind tasting of each style of beer and the results of each category were:

Milds

Bitters

Best Bitters

Stouts & Porters

Cider & Perry

Final

Public Vote

A public vote was also held as part of the questionnaire in the programme and the results of this were:

Entertainment

On the Foreign beer bar there was a good selection of American beers alongside the German and Czech bottles. British Real Ale in a bottle has really taken off in the last few years and a selection of these were also featured with tasting notes in the programme.

On Friday Evening Tony McPhee was well received by lovers of blues as he played material from his new CD "Blues at Ten" as well as a few Groundhogs classics including "Eccentric Man". The Den Hi-Fi shop on Cavendish Street donated the top raffle prize for this session: A top quality turntable which was won by Jason Fielding of Clitheroe. Apparently he was over on a stag night trip by minibus. The prize was presented to him two weeks later in the shop in Keighley.

On Saturday afternoon the Hall Royd Brass Band made a welcome return and on Saturday evening "Brad Jazz", the Bradford University Jazz Band, entertained featuring the beer festival staffing officer on piano! Their mix of big band and 60's and 70's TV theme tunes went down well with customers and staff alike. The top raffle prize for this session was a jigsaw of American bottle labels mounted in an enormous picture frame, donated by a branch member and won by Nigel Richardson of Shipley. How he managed to carry it home we'll probably never know!

The free bus to and from the railway station and to town by request continues to be popular, particularly as fine weather cannot be guaranteed in late September.

A big thank you to all our sponsors which I list below:

Also thanks to the many pubs, breweries and CAMRA members that have donated tombola prizes.

Next years' festival has already been provisionally booked with Victoria Hall and the dates are Thursday 28th - Saturday 30th September 2006.

Andy Moore - Festival Organiser