Worcester Beer Festival

We’ve been to beer festivals before but never on this scale! If you’ve ever been to the IWA beer tent and thought it was a good selection at around 30 different barrels, this was TEN times bigger. There were over 300 different ales and over 100 ciders and perrys. I particularly like dark stouts and porters and there was just too much choice!

half way down the beer tent

cider and perry tent

It was £15 to get in and for that you got a programme, a commemorative glass, either pint or half size, plus £8 of beer tokens.

I tried 3 different stouts, one flavoured with coffee and chocolate was heaven in a glass. Roger tried 5 different beers more in the style of his beloved Old Speckled Hen.

When we arrived at 6.00pm it was busy but by 10.00 it was rammed and there were long queues for the beer. Outside the marquee there were several food stalls all doing brisk trade and lots of people sat round and about having fun. Quite a few people had turned up in fancy dress and the T-shirt and novely stand did a roaring trade.

"does my bum look big in this?"

I'll have whatever he was drinking

There were no discarded plastic glasses because everyone had their own special glass to look after and hardly any litter, although later in the evening the bins couldn’t cope and overflowed a bit. There were plenty of porta-loos which were serviced continuously throughout the evening and were spotless and the only complaint I heard all night was one woman complaining that there were more gents’ toilets than ladies. As there were twice as many men there than women they’d got it right and there were never very long queues anyway.

Another marquee held the live music. The two bands that were performing were really good.

The first did more up-to-date material and a lot of Amy Winehouse stuff, but the second group who came on at 10.00 were a blues band and were superb. Just as they started an Eric Clapton medley we heard fireworks going off and went outside to watch a display about ½ a mile away. This was the perfect distance really . I don’t know where the actual display was but it went on for about 20 minutes and fitted just perfectly with the music and made for a really good end to our evening.