Hitchin 2012 Beer & Cider Festival

Not long to go now!

Mark March 9th and 10th on your calendars for the Hitchin Beer & Cider festival. Held jointly by North Hertfordshire CAMRA and the Hitchin Round Table at the Town Hall. (Maybe for the last time – yes, we keep saying that. We expect that eventually they’ll get their act together and make the town hall unusable to us as promised.)

We’re still working on the beer list – so if you have any suggestions let us know via a comment here on this post, or to @nh_camra on Twitter, or using an email to: editor@camranorthherts.co.uk.

More details on the Fesival Page – including the beer list when it is finalised!

We also need volunteers to help out at the festival. To volunteer you need to be a CAMRA or Round Table member. Volunteers get a discounted beer price, a t-shirt, and a festival glass! To volunteer email Paul Beardsley on: socialsecretary@camranorthherts.org.uk

"Diablo is our flagship IPA, loaded with US hop varieties, dominated by the 'Citra' variety. Huge tropical flavours & aromas punctuate, mango, lychee, and papaya fruits abound, with notes of resinous pine leading to a lasting bitterness. A devilishly good IPA."

By popular vote, the beer of the festival at Letchworth was Summer Wine Brewery Diablo – a strong & hoppy IPA, a style becoming increasingly popular (other well-known examples include: Thornbridge Jaipur IPA and BrewDog Punk IPA.) Summer Wine Brewery are quite new to the UK brewing scene, though already very well known amongst beer twitterers and bloggers.  They are also no stranger to controversy when it comes to CAMRA, as one of a new wave of breweries that are pushing the boundaries of the beer world they probably often find themselves in the firing line of the occaisional cask ale traditionalist.  There is a famous (in online beer circles) “altercation” with one Kevin, documented on their blog here: CAMRA – The Campaign for Real Alienation.  It makes for amusing reading, so long as you’re not too sensitive – it is worth reflecting on.

If you use Twitter you can follow SWB: @SWBrewery

I was a little worried that the brewery would simply refuse to accept the award, to make a point of some sort.  Luckily it seems that our two members, who headed up north back in November to present the certificate, weren’t put through the malt-mill never to be seen again, nor immediately ejected from the brewery.  The text below is their presentation report.

Regular readers may remember that Summer Wine Brewery’s Diablo IPA 6% was voted the Beer of the Festival at Letchworth in September. North Herts branch policy is to visit en masse, drink free beer at the brewery and then decamp to nearby recommended boozers to get stuck in to plenty more. Sounds good eh? Well this time it didn’t go quite to plan. Summer Wine are going through a never-ending growth in demand for their beers and couldn’t find time to accommodate us. However, a trip to the Yorkshire Motherland gave two of us an opportunity to sneak up while they weren’t looking and thrust the certificate into the Head Brewer’s hands. This was the brewery’s first ever BOF win so it was well received.

Head Brewer James Farran (left) is delighted to receive the certificate from some grinning idiot (right).

While there we had the 50p tour. Current production is on a six barrel plant which will be replaced with something much bigger sometime this year when suitable premises to put it in can be found. Most of the beer is bottled, some is cask and gasp some gets put into kegs… Bottles are now available to buy online if you’re interested. Summer Wine beers are not your typical brown Yorkshire Bitter; most have very complex malt recipes and more hops than you can shake a stick at. The bottles we took away with us were certainly an interesting bunch.

Afterwards we traditionally decamped to the nearby Nook in Holmfirth (round the back of Sid’s Café in ‘Last of the Summer Wine’) which also has a brewery in the back yard, and we got an impromptu tour of that too when we were caught pressing our faces to the windows for a better look. Two breweries in a day, can’t be bad!

Words: Graham Perry, Photo: Helen Perry

Another Letchworth Beer Festival has come and gone, making it 20 that the branch has under its collective belt now. On the stats it was a good one as Letchworth festivals go, a handful more people than last year and a reasonable range of beer available until the end but not too much left over. All up 986 people came through the doors and they drank an average of 3.8 pints of ale each. Of course some of our visitors were of the more fruity persuasion – managing to put away nearly 1000 pints of cider and perry.

I had the honour of putting together the beer list this year – a job much more more difficult than it might sound. Several late evenings were spent poring over the suppliers’ lists trying to pick a range of interesting beers to fit the profile. I managed to arrange some special ales by chatting directly to some breweries online. This is how we got the Grain Blackwood Stout in an oak barrel – an impressive sight! Several ale drinkers, with a look of nostalgia in their eyes, were heard to exclaim something along the lines of “I haven’t seen one of them since I were a lad!” We also had a couple of beers from a new brewery in Norwich, Northcote, thanks to a special request received via twitter from a chap who was going to visit the festival on the eve of his birthday. Thus the Jiggle Juice, one of our two strong IPAs was acquired. Another was the Project Venus Venus Rouge the second in a series of collaboration brews involving brewsters from several British breweries.

Smile & wave for the camera!

During the festival I received more requests to recommend a beer matching a description along the lines of “pale and hoppy” than anything else. This isn’t one of our recognised styles and covers beers we classify as bitters, best bitters, and strong ales. Luckily our kilderkin of Buntingford’s Polar Star provided something we could offer the hop-heads until nearly the very end of the festival. Most of our other hoppy ales ran dry early on Friday. A particular favourite seemed to be the Bristol Beer Factory Acer – a “single hop” ale using a Japanese variety called Sorachi Ace. The flavour imparted to this beer by the hops was unusual yet compelling, very modern – it was described by one of our visitors as “hipster beer”. We may have to give this sort of ale a little more attention for future beer festivals.

Letchworth Morris Men in action

Beer & Cider of the Festival

At the end of the festival we counted the votes and the beer of the festival turned out to be the Summer Wine Brewery Diablo IPA. One of our “pale and hoppy” beers and our other “strong IPA” – 6% ABV and dominated by flavours imparted by Citra hops. We will be arranging an award presentation trip as soon as possible – the brewery is in Honley, just south of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire. Keep your eyes on What’s Brewing and our website for further details.

On the cider front we found our winner somewhat closer to home – our own Apple Cottage in Baldock. Their Rumble, a medium-dry cider matured in rum casks, is our cider of the festival and I believe a presentation will take place sometime in October – again, check our website for details.

Our extensive real cider & perry range

Future Uncertain for Plinston Hall

Sadly Plinston Hall is to be renovated and is not expected to be available for the festival next year. As is the case in Hitchin, the hunt is on for a new venue. We’ve held back on being too dramatic about this being the “last festival in Plinston”, look at our situation with Hitchin town hall… we’ll see you there again on the 9th and 10th of March 2012 for yet-another “last festival in the town hall.” Meanwhile we are still interested in hearing your ideas on possible alternative venues in both towns.

Since our first festival in 1991 Dennis Hill and his staff at Plinston Hall have done an excellent job supporting the festival. So it is with some regret that we must bring you the news of Dennis’s well-earned retirement. To recognise his contribution, former branch chairman Brian Mason presented Dennis with an Eric Watson Memorial Award at the beer festival on Friday. Fittingly, Brian was wearing the 1991 Letchworth Beer festival t-shirt at the time! We wish Dennis all the best for the future!

Brian Mason presents Dennis Hill with an Eric Watson award

Festival Charities

At this festival we chose to support two hospices local to our branch area, this was in memory of Cherry Harrington. The collection came to £106.58, the money will be split between the charities. Please support these excellent local organisations that do a great deal of good in our community: The Garden House Hospice & The Isabel Hospice.

Festival Photos

Sadly, this may be the last year the Letchworth festival is to be hosted in Plinston Hall, but I hope that it would become another memorable festival for all the attendees. See you there!

We could still do with a few more volunteers for the Letchworth Beer Festival – which is very soon! – It’s on today! 5pm and we’re opening the doors! –

We need volunteers for the following times (you don’t have to be available for the whole time) – volunteers must be 18+ and CAMRA members.

Especially for Thursday!

• Thursday 22nd September (bar/etc service) – 12 noon – Midnight
• Friday 23rd September (bar/etc service) – 11am – Midnight
• Saturday 24th September (bar/etc service) – 11am – Midnight
• Sunday 25th September (take-down) – 10am – 2pm

As encouragement here are some of the benefits of volunteering:

• You get your beer for just £1 a pint while you’re working.
• If you stay after 11pm CAMRA will pay for your taxi home.
• You get an invite to the workers’ party (free beer & food!)

If you can help out please contact Paul Beardsley via email to socialsecretary@camranorthherts.org.uk or by phone using 07970 440 703.

Thanks – and see you at the festival!

2011 Hitchin Beer Festival Beer

The Hitchin Beer and Cider festival was held on the 18th and 19th of March.  This festival, jointly run by North Herts CAMRA and the Hitchin Round Table, was a tremendous success as usual.

During the festival 2175 people (not including volunteers) consumed:

• 96% of the beer
• over 8400 pints of beer
• around 1000 pints of cider and perry
• nearly 1000 bottles of foreign beer
• all the food (we’ll try to ensure that there is more next time!)

I believe that most, if not all, of those numbers are record-breakers.

Importantly, at the close of the festival we announced the beer and cider of the festival… the winners were:

• Beer: Redemption Brewing Company – Trinity – 3% – “Pale mild brewed with 3 malts and 3 hops.  Generous late hopping provides Seville orange aromas and initial malt sweetness is dominated by citrus flavours which explode on the palate. Brewed with plenty of malt to provide decent body, so it has some backbone for a low abv beer. Pronounced bitterness throughout.“
• Cider: Gwynt y Ddraig – Black Dragon – 7.2%, medium – “Matured in oak barrels to produce a cider rich in colour, body and flavour with a fresh fruity aroma.“

You’ll can read our full report while enjoying a pint when the next Hertfordshire Pints of View newsletter hits your local pub.

Open from noon on the 12th and 11am on the 13th

891 gallons of real ale, 100 gallons of cider and 520 litres of imported beer!

Cheers!

See you then?

The Town Hall is the venue for an amazing range of British & Foreign Beer, Cider and Perry.

Keith Hoskins of Hitchin Initiative will formally open the event on Friday afternoon.

See the festival webpage for  more information and a beer list..

The main event is, of course, the Hitchin Beer & Cider Festival on the 12th and 13th.  Planning and preparation are well in hand, and there will be lots of traditional British beers, foreign beers, ciders and perries.  Come and help us drink it!  Better still, as the event is staffed by volunteers from CAMRA and the Round Table, if you are in either of these groups and want to volunteeer to help us serve it, contact the Festival Organiser in advance (and as soon as possible).

If anyone knows of any other upcoming festivals which may be of interest to North Herts people, please drop me a note, at secretary@camranorthherts.org.uk.

Tony.

Click the link at the top of the page for more detail.