St George's Hall Winter Ale Festival

My friend Roland (left) and I in St George's Hall 

for the last beer festival

Tickets are now on sale for the St George's Hall Winter Ale Festival which will be taking place in the famous St George's Hall in Liverpool. I went with some friends to the last festival in this venue, and everyone had a great time. It was my first ever visit to the spectacular Great Hall - I say that with a slight feeling of shame, having been born in Liverpool! The session we attended was concluded with the Grim Reaper calling 'Time!' while Mozart was being played on the great organ.

There will be up to 200 different real ales and ciders alongside an indoor gin garden with a selection of boutique gins, spirits, wine and prosecco. This ale festival definitely caters for all tastes.

The bar sponsor for the festival will be Ossett Brewery, which is based just outside Bradford, and many of their award-winning brews will be on the bars. Not only that, but Ossett will be bringing their sister breweries with them too, so there will be beers from Fernandes, Riverhead and the famous Rat brewery. You can expect many other breweries to be announced as the festival draws closer.

Entertainment will be provided at all sessions, except for Friday daytime. If you get peckish, there will be tasty hot and cold food prepared by Liverpool Cheese Company, Peninsula Pies and Crackpot Catering (serving up their special Scouse) throughout the festival.

All CAMRA members receive a discount on production of a valid membership card at the Thursday evening and Friday daytime session: a full card of tokens is £15, but at those two sessions is only £13 for CAMRA card holders. There will also be a return of the 'Beer of the Festival Award', voted for by all customers.

The festival runs from Thursday 30 January to Saturday 1 February 2020. For those unfamiliar with Liverpool, the venue is adjacent to Queens Square bus station and less than 10 minutes' walk from Central Station.

This is a popular festival so it might be wise to buy your tickets well in advance here.

► This is one of a series of articles that I write for the CAMRA column in our local papers, the Southport Visiter and Ormskirk Advertiser. Older articles on local pubs are here.

European Tap Takeover + pizza

Here's something a bit different.

Over the weekend of 1 and 2 November, the Tap & Bottles in Cambridge Walk, Southport, is hosting a European Tap Takeover. In addition to its usual offer which always includes four real ales, they'll dedicate taps to beers from the Continent from 5.00pm on the Friday evening. Additionally, there will be Neapolitan pizza all day Saturday supplied by Purely Pizza, Southport's artisan pizza maker.

Cheshire Lines Oktoberfest

On an impulse, I decided to pop into the Cheshire Lines on King Street, Southport, last weekend and was greeted warmly with the news of their forthcoming beer festival. The Chesh, as it's generally known, is a good real ale pub with four handpumps regularly in use, and the beers I tried on this visit were in good condition.

On Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th October they'll be putting on the Chesh Oktoberfest promising “Steins & Good Times” with thirty different casks, so there will be plenty of scope for sampling various beers. This two-day event will also feature live music from six bands, an outdoor bar, a DJ, a barbecue and various giveaways – all a mere two minutes' walk from Lord Street.

The Chesh is also popular for its food for which it gets good reviews on TripAdvisor, so you will be well-served if you get peckish after a few pints. Entry is free; not one to be missed. Tel: (01704) 546565.

Ainsdale Food & Drink Festival

Advance notice of a local festival in two months' time.

Ainsdale Cricket Club has informed Southport & West Lancs CAMRA that they will be holding their first food and drink festival at the Cricket Club from 11th to 13th October. While they will have gin and rum bars, street food, bands and DJs, the main emphasis will be on the beer and they intend to have around 40 different beers and ciders on offer. They want to showcase some local breweries as well as some more obscure ones.

On Friday night, 6.00 pm to 11.00 pm, some of the brewers will personally showcase their products. On Saturday they will be open 2.00 pm to 11.00 pm, and 2.00 pm to 8.00 pm on Sunday.

The organisers tell me that they are hoping to make it an annual event. I'll provide more details when I learn them closer to the time.

Is there life after Christmas?

After months of the seasonal hype that begins just after you have returned from your summer holidays, it's about now that people start wondering: is there life after Christmas? Well, here in the North West, these might provide something of an answer.

First is the CAMRA Manchester Beer & Cider Festival (MBCF) which runs from Thursday 24 to Saturday 26 January 2019 in Manchester Central, Windmill Street, Manchester, the fourth year at this venue. MBCF is the North’s biggest pub crawl but safely protected from the weather. With

around 750 different drinks, there’s bound to be something to suit everyone. MBCF aims to encourage people to try new beers, and this year it will feature some specially commissioned beers, collaborations and ales that are rarely, if ever, seen in this region. 15,558 eager beer lovers attended in 2018. The nearest railway station is Deansgate. Buy tickets here.

Next is the St George's Hall Winter Ales Festival from Thursday 31 to Saturday 2 February 2019 in one of Liverpool's most iconic buildings. Expect up to 200 different real ales and ciders alongside an indoor gin garden with a selection of boutique gins, spirits, wine and prosecco. There will also be entertainment for all sessions except Friday daytime, and hot and cold food to soak up the alcohol, provided by local food providers. Though it's not a CAMRA festival, they offer discount for CAMRA members with valid membership cards on the Thursday evening and Friday daytime sessions. St George's Hall is on Liverpool's famous Lime Street. Tickets available here. 

CAMRA Liverpool & Districts Branch are once again holding their annual beer festival from Thursday 21 to Saturday 23 February 2019 in the impressive surroundings of the crypt of the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral on Brownlow Hill. More than 200 ales and ciders will be on offer. The Brasswürst Bavarian Band will provide entertainment on Friday and Saturday evening, and food stalls are there should you get peckish. The CAMRA Liverpool Beer Festival is the longest-running festival in Merseyside. Get your tickets here.

Southport Beer & Cider Festival 2018

It's back after a two-year absence caused by some local whingers who moaned that they didn't like this venue and wanted another in the town centre - not that they had any suggestions themselves, of course. As this is the only suitable central venue, the festival has returned there. Tickets here - free admission for CAMRA members.

Beer Street 2018

The Beer Street festival returns to Southport town centre from Friday 15 to Sunday 17 June. Described as a "Cask Ale & Craft Beer Street Party", it will be once again hosted by the Tap & Bottles, Cambridge Arcade, Southport, close to Lord Street and the railway station.

They're hoping to build on last year's success by providing a huge selection of more than 80 cask ales, keg beers and ciders, including special collaborations and one-off brews. The festival will extend into the Arcade, which is covered so you won't need your brolly. More information here.

The fest that never was

This beer glass is one of the more interesting ones in what I laughingly call my collection. I picked it up a long time ago at another festival, possibly Bury. There's nothing special about the glass itself: it's just a standard nonic with an attractive logo for the Stockport Beer Festival of 1988, exactly thirty years ago.

Except it's not: this festival never took place. Among the organisers, there was apparently a conversation along the lines of:
"Did you apply for the licence?"
"No, I thought you were doing that."
Oh dear!

By the time they realised they had no licence for the event, it was too late. Unfortunately it was also too late to cancel the order for the glasses, and I picked up one for the novelty of having a glass for the beer festival that never was.

I went to the Stockport beer festival a couple of times a good few years ago; it was held in Stockport Town Hall in those days. On the last occasion, we caught the train from Southport and rolled up for the Saturday afternoon session. Unfortunately, they had almost run out of beer so we strolled along to a pub underneath the viaduct which you can see in stylised form on the glass. The pub was the Crown where, as I recall, we had a really good afternoon before going home happy. Checking on What Pub, the Crown still looks like a great pub.

In case you're wondering, although you probably weren't, it's not made of white glass; 
I put paper inside to show the design more clearly.

CAMRA - losing its Marbles?

It's been interesting to see the spat between Manchester's Marble Brewery and CAMRA, with Marble claiming that they were blacklisted from the Great British Beer Festival. According to the brewery, a Marble staff member was victim of a sexist remark by a CAMRA volunteer at Manchester Beer and Cider Festival (MBCF), in January 2016. The brewery e-mailed the festival organisers to resolve the matter and have subsequently said that they felt great headway had been made with this. They are now asserting that their complaint led to their being blacklisted at the Great British Beer Festival (GBBF). CAMRA has investigated and states there is no evidence to support such an allegation.

Ultimately, I've no idea who's right here, but I have not read of any demonstrable evidence of a link between these two incidents. Marble seems to saying: "We had this problem at the MBCF, and then we weren't selected for the GBBF - there must be a connection." Well, not necessarily.

I know there are people in CAMRA with sexist attitudes, just as there are in most walks of life; for example, a long time ago I used to know a union rep who thought it was okay for him to crack sexist and racist jokes, not a view most of us shared. Nowadays most people who do hold such crass attitudes usually know when to keep them to themselves, but occasionally some idiots don't, as seems to have happened at the MBCF. From the very few incidents in a CAMRA setting that I've been aware of, I know that the campaign generally takes them seriously.

As I see it, there are three possible scenarios here:

1. The brewery is mistaken: there is no link.
2. They are correct: they were blacklisted.
3. Publicly slagging off CAMRA is good publicity.

I don't know which is correct, although I tend to think point 3 is the least likely because such publicity is short term - next week's chip paper, in fact. In addition, to use an allegation of sexism for publicity purposes would downplay the seriousness of the complaint.

Bearing in mind that no brewery has an automatic right to be at the GBBF, and if one puts the suggestion of blacklisting aside for a moment, there are two possible explanations:

• There are lots of good beers that have to be left out simply because the GBBF cannot accommodate them all; Marble was just unlucky.
• Marble's beers simply weren't as good as the competition on this occasion.

Again, I don't know which applies. Any satisfactory resolution to this dispute seems unlikely in the near future, but I doubt anyone will gain by continuing it in public. There will have to be either an agreement to disagree or a permanent falling out, because this public war of words is going nowhere and benefits no one.

Keeping mum costs money

It might be simpler just to do this

In February I wrote a piece called Tell people what you're up to, in which I explained how some pubs don't see the need for accurate and timely publicity, even when they've gone to the expense and effort of putting on a beer festival. A month earlier I had written about the lack of notice the Freshfield Hotel gave for its Winter Ales Expo, something the new licensee there has recently done (see previous post) by giving less than a fortnight's notice for a festival that begins tomorrow.

This weekend has seen the Funky Beer Festival at Southport's Pleasureland which began on 30 June and ends today. It was, I believe, run in conjunction with Cross Bay Brewery, but the problem is that the first publicity as far as I could see was on Thursday in the local paper, the Southport Visiter. I think it had been on Facebook a bit longer, but unless you're already linked to the relevant page or someone points it out to you, you're unlikely to see it - not forgetting that quite a few people aren't on Facebook at all.

The local CAMRA branch, to which I belong, wasn't given any more notice. As I wrote in January:

Oddly enough, most drinkers, including CAMRA members, have lives outside of pubs, such as families, jobs, other commitments, social activities and hobbies, and can't always drop everything at short notice.

It's no good just giving a festival a snappy title and 'cool' video and then expecting drinkers to turn out in droves. It also doesn't make sense to be imprecise about what you're offering. The Funky Beer Festival advertised it would be selling 'craft beers', along with gins and Prosecco, but with no mention of real ales. I'm told that in fact it had around 30 cask beers, but this wasn't clear from the publicity. I'm not the only one who would have little interest in going to a craft-only festival, especially when I can get a good range of real ales in the town centre with no admission charges and real glasses.

The organisers seem likely to lose money, which may cause them to conclude that there's no market for beer festivals in Southport. This simply isn't true, as the recent Beer Street festival organised by the Tap & Bottles showed. Even the last CAMRA festival in the town, despite being dubbed a failure by some (maliciously in my view), managed to make a small profit.

I've tried to think of any other types of events, such as sport, concerts, drama and so on, that expect people to turn out with little or no notice, but most aren't so complacent that they take their customers for granted. On the contrary, they are usually publicised well in advance so that people can make their plans around them. Beer festivals take months to organise, so no one can say there isn't enough time.

It's a cliché that there's no such thing as bad publicity (try telling that to our hapless prime minister), but it's obvious that little or no publicity multiplies the chance of failure. With beer festivals, financial losses can be large: unopened barrels can be sold on, assuming you can find a buyer, but once they have been opened, they can't be moved and have to be used or poured down the drain. Twenty half-full barrels at the end of a festival can lose an organiser close to a thousand pounds.

There's another cliché that can be applied here: spoiling the ship for a ha'porth of tar.

Freshfield Beer Festival

The Freshfield

I've had a message from Jo Gillespie, the new manager of the Freshfield Hotel.

She tells me that they are holding a Beer Festival from Monday 3 July to Sunday 9 July. This pub has earned several local CAMRA awards in the past. It's on Massam's Lane, Formby, L37 7BD, a short walk from Freshfield Station.

The pub is worth visiting anyway as it usually has a good range of real ales on. 

Beer Street, Southport

The Tap & Bottles in Cambridge Walks, Southport, are running their second Beer Street festival based around their pub and extending along the arcade. Described as Southport's only cask ale and craft beer festival, it will have more than 75 beers in one location. Opening times: Friday 19th May 1.00pm to 11.00pm; Saturday 20th midday to 11.00pm; Sunday 21st midday to 7.00pm.

The Cambridge Arcade runs between Lord Street and Chapel Street in Southport town centre; the Lord Street entrance is next to the Atkinson arts centre. The buses on Lord Street and Southport railway station on Chapel Street are all just a few minutes' walk away. To find out more about Southport Beer Street, go to the website here, where a beer list should be available soon.

A birthday party and a festival

A couple of items of local news:

Andrew at the Grasshopper micropub at 70 Sandon Road, Hillside, Southport, tells me that they will be celebrating their first birthday this weekend from Friday 17 March. They will be getting some special beers and entertainment for the occasion. The 47 bus passes just yards away, and it's a five minute walk to Hillside Station.

Formby's Red Star Brewery, which was opened in 2015, and Formby Cricket Club (established 1865) are working together to present the 1st Formby Beer Festival from 31 March to 2 April, with more than 20 cask ales and a selection of ciders. It's at Formby Cricket & Hockey Club, Cricket Path, Formby, L37 7DP, a short walk from the main bus routes. More details and tickets here.

30th Wigan Beer Festival

The Wigan pieman celebrates his 30th

I returned to Southport yesterday after working for two days at the 30th Wigan Beer Festival. My first task was on the judging panel to help choose the beers of the festival, and then I was mainly on the doors. As always, I enjoyed my time volunteering there.

The funny thing about working at a beer festival is that you seem to end up drinking rather less than you might expect, considering the amount of time you're in there, mainly because the beer is an adjunct to the task you've been assigned.

How busy you are varies, sometimes with extreme peaks and troughs. On the admissions door at Wigan, we had periods of relative quiet punctuated by frantic activity each time the bus came in from Wigan town centre. As the festival venue, a sports hall, is more than a mile from Wigan town centre, the local bus preservation trust provides a free bus service to and from the festival (voluntary donations are encouraged towards their costs).

I think I've commented before that Wigan seems to attract a more diverse range of drinkers than most festivals I've been to, with groups of young women coming in without males in tow, which I've found to be less common elsewhere. Okay, the gender balance is still skewed towards men, but it's still noticeably different. Contrary to some people's expectations, they don't all gravitate towards the cider and perry bar. The DW Stadium is just across the road, so we had a large number of rugby fans, male and female, both before and after the match to add to the mix.

I didn't get to try very many beers, but of those I did try, I found that Waimea, a 5.2% single hop IPA from Manchester's Blackjack Brewery particularly suited me. I don't know how it's pronounced, but my guess is 'why me'.

I find the Wigan festival is a very friendly one, both the other volunteers and the public. Looking forward to next year already.

Freshfield Winter Ales Expo

The Freshfield

I recently received this e-mail from Southport & West Lancs CAMRA:

"Paddy and the staff at the Freshfield on Massams Lane Formby are holding a Winter Ales Expo over this coming weekend running 27th to 29th January. These additional beers will be available to sample while stocks last for this weekend only."

I don't understand why some licensees seem to inform CAMRA about beer-related events that they are arranging only at the last minute. I've sometimes heard about pub beer festivals only days before they're due to begin, even though they must take months to organise. In this case, I now have other plans; in addition, if I'd known about this event only a week ago, I could have mentioned it, not only here, but in the CAMRA column in our local newspaper.

I know publicity isn't always easy, but it doesn't help if you don't take advantage of those opportunities that do exist.

Anyway, enough of that: it begins tomorrow, if you fancy giving it a go. The Freshfield is well-known for always having a good range of beers on, despite being a Greene King house.

Southport Beer Street

Great news for Southport beer lovers: a beer festival in the heart of town. The Tap and Bottles micropub in Cambridge Walks is running its first ever beer festival. They are calling it Southport Beer Street because they will be extending the festival out of the pub and down along Cambridge Arcade. The Tap and Bottles has become a popular destination for beer drinkers in the couple of years that it has been been open to the extent that it is expanding into the premises next door. It was awarded the CAMRA Branch Pub of the Year (Merseyside) 2016 by the Southport and West Lancs Branch.

They are aiming to offer more than 75 different beers, including some from local breweries. There will be around 30 cask (or 'real') ales on, one each from some of their favourite breweries in the UK; the rest will be made up by the taps (or 'craft beers') pouring inside the pub and outside on the street.

There will be live acoustic music throughout the weekend and they are working on providing a couple of tasting events for “the real beer geeks out there”, to quote the organisers. Asked if it would be cold, they reply: “We're going to heat the arcade for the weekend. So after a couple of beers, it'll feel like the middle of summer.”

Admission to the festival is free. There is a £3 charge on your glass, which will be refunded if you decide you not to keep it. Beer Street runs from 25 to 27 November. Opening hours will be: 4.00 to 10.30 on Friday; midday to 10.30 on Saturday; midday to 7.00 on Sunday.

The Cambridge Arcade runs between Lord Street and Chapel Street in Southport town centre; the Lord Street entrance is next to the Atkinson arts venue. The buses on Lord Street and Southport railway station on Chapel Street are all just a few minutes' walk away. To find out more about Southport Beer Street, go to their website, where a beer list should be available soon.

This is part of a series of articles that I am writing for the CAMRA column in our local paper, the Southport Visiter. Previous reviews are here.

Local beer festivals in September

The Lakeside Inn, Southport

There are five local beer festivals all within fairly easy travelling distance of Southport coming up this month. Admission is free for three of them, although you still have to pay for your beer!

First off the blocks is the the Ship, Wheat Lane, Lathom, L40 4BX, which will be holding its 6th Annual Beer, Pie & Sausage Festival from 8th to 11th. There will be a large marquee housing 40 hand pulled real ales, 12 real ciders, live music, speciality pies and sausages, and a barbecue. As usual, there is a CAMRA preview night on 8 September from 6pm onwards. Festival webpage.

The Lakeside Inn, Britain's smallest pub, is having a beer festival over the weekend of 16th to 18th. The Lakeside is on the Promenade in Southport, PR9 0EA. I tried to get more information about this festival by calling into the pub, but even though it was only a fortnight away, the barmaid didn't know any details and there were no posters. She suggested I ask at the Victoria, owned by the same people, but the barman there didn't know either. I left my contact details but have heard nothing more. Pub Facebook page.

Ormskirk Beer, Food and Wine Festival runs from 23rd to 25th. Organised jointly by the Cricketers pub and Ormskirk Cricket Club, it will offer 60+ real ales, wines from around the world and a craft gin bar. There will also be a food market, live music and a family day on Sunday. It will take place at the cricket club, Altys Lane, Ormskirk. L39 4RG. Tickets available on-line, in the Cricketers or the Ship in Lathom. Festival webpage.

The 6th Longton Beer Festival takes place on 23rd and 24th at Longton VM Sports & Social Club, School Lane, Longton, Lancashire, PR4 5YA. They will be offering a varied selection of around 25 cask ales from Lancashire, Yorkshire and beyond, plus ciders and bottled beers. This year they are hoping to raise enough money to buy a defibrillator for the club. Festival webpage.

St George's Hall beer festival runs from 29th to 1st October in the magnificent St George's Hall, Lime Street, L1 1JJ. It offers 200+ real ales, ciders, bottled beers, local food and entertainment. Tickets available on-line. Festival webpage.

A slightly shorter version of this will appear in the Southport Visiter this week.

Ormskirk Beer, Food & Wine Festival

A joint venture by the Cricketers pub and Ormskirk Cricket Club. 

Click to enlarge the flyer. More info on website. 

Freshfield Beer Festival 2016

I've just heard that the 2016 Freshfield beer festival runs from 25 to 31 July. There will be more than 100 real ales, craft beers and ciders, along with some live music as well.

The Freshfield is at 1 Massams Lane, Formby, L37 7BD, about three tenths of a mile from Freshfield Station. Tel: 01704 874871.

Reminder: Southport Beer & Folk Festival

I wrote last month about this festival, which runs this week from 15 to 17 July at Southport's Pleasureland. It is a joint enterprise by Real Ale Events Ltd, owned by Liverpool Organic Brewery, and Southport's Atkinson arts centre. I gave full details, including a link for tickets and a list of performers, here; the only change is that all the volunteer opportunities have now been taken. There will be three days of real ale to the sounds of folk and Americana music.

It's probably worth mentioning that it’s a family friendly event, with under 18s welcome, except in the bar area. Under 12s are allowed in free when accompanied by a paying adult.