CAMRA North HertsCampaign for Real Ale - Real Ale, Real Pubs, Real People

Sorry to say, the festival has been and gone! Once again it was a record-breaker. The full festival report can be found here.

When:

• Friday: midday to 11pm
• Saturday: 11am to 11pm
• Under 18s? Only permitted between 11am and 7pm on Saturday, sport-hall area only.

Where: Hitchin Town Hall, Brand Street, Hitchin, SG5 1HX [map] (under 1 mile walk from the station)

How Much: Entry on the door: £2.50 – Round Table, CAMRA, EBCU & OAPs FREE

Beer? Cider? Perry? We have 77 different ales from 34 different breweries – 27 different ciders & perrys from 17 different producers – plus 6 draught and 33 bottled foreign beers. Excited? (We are!) See below for more detail on the beer & cider lists. We also have some Cox Apple Juice supplied by Apple Cottage.

Food? The kitchen will be in the capable hands of both the Radcliffe Arms and Cardona & Son who will supply:

• Cardona Rare Breed Sausages
• Onion Bhajis
• Pork Scratchings
• Scotch Eggs
• Muntjac Chilli Wraps
• Bean & Cheese Pasties
• Venison Pasties
• Wine by the glass (so you can bring non-beer/cider drinking friends!)

Olives and Stuff will also be present as usual supplying their range of olives, pickles, and salami.

2011 Hitchin Beer Festival Beer

Volunteers?

Bear in mind that all the staff serving beer at the festival are volunteers giving up their own time in order to make the event possible. It can get very busy at the festival, especially on Friday evening, so be patient and friendly!

We’re always looking for more volunteers to help out at the festival – and especially before and after for set-up and clean-up. To volunteer you need to be a CAMRA or Hitchin Round Table member. Volunteers get their pints for a pound, a t-shirt, and a free festival glass! To volunteer email Paul Beardsley on: socialsecretary@camranorthherts.org.uk

If you would like to put a festival poster up at your pub/workplace you can download one here. Hopefully you may have spotted one already!

Brewery Map

Mapping our beers is always an interesting thing to do, and as you can see here we have some distinct brewery “clusters”. We thank Hardknott brewery for providing a range of beers from the small Cumbrian Cluster and the London Brewers Alliance for our wide and interesting range of breweries from down London town. The seeming “Manchester” cluster comes to us from multiple suppliers, I guess the cluster probably exists because they make interesting beer up that way!

Nearly Final Beer List

(Apologies for the sudden changes to the list only a week before the festival – we have had some supply issues this year and are going to be missing out on a few favourite brews. We have a lot of new ones instead now! The 2012 Hitchin Beer Festival will be one for exploring some uncharted territory.)

Cider/Perry Producers Map

Cider List

(As with the beer list, this list is not a promise. We do expect to see all of these ciders at the festival but sometimes things don’t quite run to plan.)

1. Apple Cottage (Baldock, Hertfordshire)
   • Apple Crumble (Dry – Made with two varieties of local apples), 6.6%
   • FTJ (Sweet – otherwise known as “Filthy Tramp Juice”), 6.4%
   • Whisky Cask (?????? – Fermented in whisky casks.), 6.8%
2. Biddenden Vineyard (Biddenden, Kent)
   • Bushels Cider (Medium – Smooth and ever popular), 6.0%
3. Broadoak (Clutton, Somerset)
   • Premium’ Perry (Sweet – Liquid pear drops! CAMRA Perry of the Year ’09), 7.5%
4. Butford Farm (Bodenham, Herefordshire)
   • Perry (Medium Dry – Organic, rustic, full of pear flavour with a bite!), 5.0%
5. Crossman’s Prime Farmhouse Cider (Hewish, Somerset)
   • Cider (Sweet – Cider apples used in this perennially popular cider), 6.0%
6. Glebe Farm (Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire)
   • SIDE-R (Dry – Awarded 3rd place in the East Anglian Cider Competition), 6.5%
7. Gwatkin (Abbey Dore, Herefordshire)
   • Stoke Red Cider (Sweet – Single variety, succulent and full bodied), 7.5%
8. Gwynt Y Ddraig (Pontypridd, Glamorgan)
   • Black Dragon Cider (Medium Dry – Runner up CAMRA Cider of the Year ’10), 7.2%
9. Hardings (Luton, Bedfordshire)
   • Three County Bounty (Medium Sweet – New cider from a local producer), ?.?%
10. Little Red Rooster (Lewes, East Sussex)
    • Cider Perry (Medium – Apples & pears in this well-rounded crown pleaser), 8.4%
11. Merry Moon (Ashford, Kent)
    • Scary Perry (Dry – Very drinkable perry), 6.0%
12. Millwhites (Boxmoor, Hertfordshire)
    • Apples & Pears (Medium Sweet – Scrumpy cider & pear juice blend), 5.0%
    • Chisel Jersey Cider (Medium Dry – Single variety cider), 8.0%
    • Dabinett (Medium Dry – Single variety cider), 7.0%
    • Hedge Layer (Medium – A light and refreshing cider), 4.8%
    • Michelin (Medium – Single variery cider), 6.0%
    • Mixed Scrumpy (Medium – Traditional farmhouse style), 5.0%
    • Rioja Cask (Dry – Full bodied, hints of red wine tannin), 6.7%
    • Rum Cask (Medium – Aged in rum barrels, rich!), 7.5%
    • Whisky Cask (Dry – Aged in whisky barrels, smooth, “spirit” finish), 7.5%
13. Nempnett Cider (Nempnett Thrubwell, Somerset)
    • Piglet’s Choice Cider (Medium Dry – Dark gold, lots of flavour, ?.?%
14. New Forest (Burley, Hampshire)
    • Snakecatcher Cider (Medium – Oak fermented, easy drinking & smooth), 7.0%
15. Rich’s (Watchfield, Somerset)
    • Cider (Dry – Very easy drinking, soft & smooth), 6.0%
16. Tricky Cider (Taunton, Somerset)
    • Cider (Medium – A tradition farmhouse cider from the Blackdown Hills), 6.5%
17. Winkleigh Cider Company (Winkleigh, Devon)
    • Sam’s Cider (Sweet – Smooth as silk, clean as a whistle), 6.0%

Apple Juice

• Apple Cottage (Baldock, Hertfordshire)
  • Cox apple juice. Raw cider perhaps? 250ml bottles

Foreign Beer List

Our local foreign beer enthusiasts build an interesting foreign beer list for our festivals. They’ve been hard at work once again. A PDF version of the foreign beer list (sorry, no time to HTMLify it) is linked below and includes 6 draught beers and a whopping 33 bottled beers.

• Hitchin 2012 Foreign Beer List