Our most recent Beer Festival was held in our new and improved Function Room at the beginning of April 2007. 19 different ales were available. These were

Ballard's Midhurst Mild (3.5%)

Black Sheep Best Bitter (3.8%)

3 Castles Barbury Castle (3.9%)

Goddard's Ales of Wight (4.0%)

Stonehenge Pigswill (4.0%)

Hidden Old Sarum (4.1%)

Itchen Fagins (4.1%)

Appleford Powerstation (4.2%)

Hampshire Ironside (4.2%)

Oakleaf Nuptu'ale (4.2%)

Weltons Old Cocky (4.3%)

Skinner's Cornish Knocker (4.5%)

3 Castles Long Barrow (4.5%)

Triple FFF Stairway (4.6%)

Goddard's Fuggle-de-dum (4.8%)

Arkell's Kingsdown (5.0%)

Cottage Norman Conquest (5.0%)

West Berks Dr Hexter's Healer (5.0%)

Ringwood Old Thumper (5.6%)

The festival was a resounding success, aided by the beautiful bank holiday weather. The most popular ale by far was Goddard's Ales of Wight, which had sold out by the second day. We will definitely be getting this beer in again!

Preparations for our Summer Beer Festival are now underway. We anticipate that it will be held around the end of July/beginning of August. If you have any beers that you would especially like to see included then please let us know and we'll do our best to get hold of them.

 

How it works

As a reminder to previous festival goers, and to inform any newbies, our beer festivals run on a token system. First, simply ask at the bar for a copy of the ale notes, which lists the available beers, the abv, and tasting notes for each of the featured ales. Once you have chosen your beer buy a token for a pint (or half) of your preferred beverage from the bar. Then you take your token to the beer stand and exchange it for a lovely pint of ale. Easy!

We use a token system for two reasons. Firstly, it reduces queuing at the beer stand: it's much faster to exchange a token for a pint. Secondly, it means that we know exactly how many pints are left in each barrel by the number of tokens that have been sold, so you won't end up buying a token for a beer that has already sold out.