Keighley Beer, Cider and Perry Festival

Keighley Beer, Cider & Perry Festival 2006 Report

See the photos at the bottom of the page

Keighley Beer, Cider and Perry Festival 2006 which featured 10 American cask conditioned ales - reputed to be the largest range ever to be seen under one roof in the North of England - was 18% up in attendance on 2005 and despite re-ordering more beer, ran out at 9.58pm on Saturday evening. This was the first time, in 18 years of festivals, that we had run out.

The festival was hit by a fault on the gas supply to the kitchens, but this was fixed in time for opening on the Thursday evening. Also, the guest of honour, Georgey Spanswick, failed to turn up to open the festival, giving only 24 hours notice. Fortunately, the Town Mayor of Keighley who had been invited anyway to attend the opening, agreed to stand in and was duly asked to nominate the festival charity, and he chose the Royal British Legion. This was a popular choice and a considerable amount of money was raised.

89 beers were available over the three days - there would have been 92 but for one not arriving and another two condemned as unsaleable. More Copper Dragon was ordered to make up the volume, but after Thursday night we were down on numbers and we thought we had plenty of beer. Not so Friday, as we had record numbers of visitors (51% up at lunchtime and 10% up in the evening). Of course, this was too late to order more beer and the upward trend continued on Saturday with lunchtime being 8% up and the evening being a whacking 62% up. Was it the American beers that did it with people returning on Saturday for a second session, or was it just the general extra advertising? We had beer mats around the pubs this year - a joint venture with Keighley and Worth Valley Railway and our branch members had been wearing festival T-Shirts from July onwards. Whatever the reason, we will need to order even more beer for next year to cope with demand. In the end, 825 gallons of beer had been supped by 1702 visitors - that's 6600 pints!

CBOB-style tasting panels (excluding the American beers as these cannot be entered for CBOB) and for Cider and Perry were conducted by branch chairman Lynda Smith. The results were as follows:

Beer of the Festival - Tasting Panel

1st: Oakleaf Brewing Co - Hole Hearted
2nd: Elland Brewery - 1872 Porter
3rd: Hardy & Hanson - Kimberley Mild
4th: Pictish Brewery - Brewers Gold

Cider or Perry of the Festival - Tasting Panel

1st: Hecks - Hendre Huffcap Perry
2nd: Olivers - Perry
3rd: Wiscombe - Cider

A customer poll also took place over all three days. We have separated out the cask beer results into British and American categories. Also here are the results of the Cider and Perry poll.

Beer of the Festival (Public Vote) - British Real Ales

1st: Thornbridge Brewery - Jaipur IPA
Joint 2nd: Bowland Brewery - Hen Harrier; Ossett Brewery - 19th Hole

Beer of the Festival (Public Vote) - American Real Ales

1st: Rogue - Chocolate Stout
2nd: Smuttynose - IPA
3rd: Victory - Storm King Stout

Cider or Perry of the Festival (Public Vote)

1st: Hecks - Hendre Huffcap Perry
2nd Joint: Gwynt Y Draig - Barnstormer Cider; Minchews - Blakeney Red Perry; Wilkins - Medium Cider

The entertainments were again well received with the Bradford University Jazz Band taking to the stage on Friday evening this year, Hall Royd Brass Band doing their usual Saturday Lunchtime slot and some new faces, Rakish Paddy, playing Irish folk/drinking songs on Saturday evening.

Our thanks go to all our sponsors - Copper Dragon Brewery for sponsoring the festival glasses (our first since 1999) and donating beer, Timothy Taylor's Brewery for sponsoring the programme and donating raffle prizes, Market Town Taverns for sponsoring the stage area, Keighley Town Council for sponsoring the customer courtesy minibus provided by Keighley Community Transport, The Brown Cow, Keighley, for sponsoring the Beer Tokens, The Grove Inn, Leeds for sponsoring Rakish Paddy, Thwaites Brewery for donating Liberation and the Andrew Flintoff cut-out to the raffle, and Tetley's Brewery for donating some excellent Mild. Also thanks to the many pubs, breweries and individuals that donated tombola prizes. Thanks to Christine Jopling for designing a fantastic logo which appeared on the festival posters, T-shirts, beer mats and glasses.

Thanks to all our staff who gave up their free time to come and work at the festival and of course to all our customers for coming.

Andy Moore - Festival Organiser