Keighley Beer, Cider & Perry Festival 2008 report
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Keighley Beer, Cider and Perry Festival 2008 was again a major success despite the credit crunch. Over 90% of the beer and cider was consumed by over 1300 customers. Although attendance was lower than last year, the festival still raised much needed cash for CAMRA's campaigning activities as well as a significant donation towards the festival charity.
After last year's successful trial of opening all day on Thursday, the festival opened for business at 12 noon on the 25th September. Although quiet at first, the festival got busier in the early evening, just in time for the arrival of the Deputy Town Mayor, Margaret Ward, for the official opening. The Deputy Mayor was given a tour of the festival and showed a keen interest both in the ciders and perrys available and in the beer judging (see below), where she praised the professional way in which the competition was being organised. She officially opened the festival on stage at around 8.15pm and spent the rest of the evening chatting to brewers, cider producers and customers. About 270 customers attended the Thursday session in total.
Friday's session started at 11 and, as usual, attracted beer festival officianados from far and wide: Stockport, York, Lancaster, West Midlands and even the South coast! After a steady afternoon session, the evening was pleasantly busy with slightly lower numbers than last year, giving a total for the day of around 560. The Friday evening music was provided by Bradford Metropolitan Concert Band, all 35 of them, who entertained the drinkers with a wide variety of tunes including many old favourites.
By close of play on Friday, only a handful of the 86 beers available at the start had run dry, so a good selection was available for opening on Saturday at 11. Attendance for the day was one of the best ever, as over 530 eager drinkers demolished all but 2 of the ciders and perries and a substantial number of the cask beers. 31 cask beers remained on tap at 11 p.m., a pretty good selection for the end of any beer festival. Only foreign bottled beers were left over in significant quantities, and these were sold on, mostly to Keighley and Worth Valley Railway for their festival at the end of October. Entertainment on Saturday was provided by Hall Royd Brass Band at lunchtime, professional and popular as usual, and in the evening by the Worth Rail Stompers playing mainly jazz, who continued to entertain right up until closing time.
The official festival charity (nominated by Keighley Town Mayor) was the Children’s Ward 17 at Airedale General Hospital, for which a considerable amount of money was raised through customers donating unused portions of beer tokens and/or cash as they left. Many thanks, customers for your generosity!
One new departure for this year's festival was our participation in the regional judging for CAMRA's Champion Beer of Britian. On Thursday evening, 'blind' tastings took place in a private room to select beers from Yorkshire and North East to go forward to the Champion Beer Of Britain competition at Earls Court in London next August. Two categories were being judged, Mild and Strong bitters, by tasting panels made up of a mix of CAMRA members and local licensees and other people from the trade. The winning beers were:
| Category | Brewery | Beer |
|---|---|---|
| Mild | Rudgate | Ruby Mild |
| Strong Bitter | York | Centurion's Ghost |
Beer festivals are, of course, not just about enjoying ourselves. They are key opportunities for CAMRA to campaign, and one of CAMRA's key campaigns at the moment is against the excessive beer duty charged in the UK, exacerbated by the unproportionate hike announced in the last budget. With assistance from Copper Dragon Brewery, who sponsored our campaign, we issued tokens to customers at random on the door and as part prizes on the tombola, which gave them each a ‘Tax Free’ half (40p off). CAMRA has calculated that on average in the UK over 80p per pint in a pub goes to the chancellor as direct taxation. Thanks to the customers who signed our petition and completed postcards to their MPs. And if you took one of the post-cards away, make sure you send it off!
Another current campaign is ‘LocAle’ where CAMRA is urging licensees to stock beer brewed locally to both support local business and to reduce food (beer) mileage. At the festival we aimed to showcase the vast range of beers available from local sources. All eight Keighley and Craven breweries (Copper Dragon, Dark Horse, Goose Eye, Litton, Naylors, Old Bear, Three Peaks and Timothy Taylor) were represented alongside the three 'rest of Bradford Met.' breweries (Old Spot, Salamander, Saltaire) and a wide range of other breweries from the surrounding area. Apologies to those local breweries whose beers we could not find room for - it's always a difficult choice.
As usual, votes were cast by customers for their 'Beer of the Festival' and the results were:
| Category | Brewery | Beer |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Kelham Island | Brooklyn Smoked Porter |
| Joint 2nd | Old Bear | Duke of Bronte |
| Joint 2nd | Old Spot | Spot of Bother |
And our thanks go to...
Timothy Taylor’s Brewery did us proud again by sponsoring the multi-coloured glasses and a feature in the programme celebrating their 150th anniversary. They also provided their own bar.
Copper Dragon Brewery of Skipton sponsored the tokens for the ‘Tax free’ promotion as well as their own bar, which they staffed throughout the festival.
Naylors Brewery of Crosshills gave us the use of their van in set up and takedown, provided some excellent food, the best tasted at Keighley Beer Festival for many years and sponsored the programme crossword competition.
Market Town Taverns continued their stage sponsorship.
Other sponsors were Keighley Town Council for the courtesy bus, the Brown Cow at Keighley for the printing of the beer tokens, and the Grove Inn, Leeds for sponsoring us with the donation of Elland’s Reet Champion Ale.
Breweries Theakston’s, Ossett, Goose Eye, Saltaire as well as SELRAP railway line re-opening pressure group advertised in the programme.
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. Finally, thanks to the festival committee for their support in organising the event, to all the staff who gave up their free time to come and work at the festival for no reward (yes! we are all volunteers!) and of course to all our customers for coming.
Photo gallery
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