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

It was with some trepidation that we opened the doors of the 2013 Hitchin Beer & Cider Festival. A change to a new venue outside the town centre and shifted to three months later in the year than usual – would anybody show up? We need not have feared!

We counted 2119 drinkers coming through the festival door – a few less than the 2278 we had in the town hall last year. However, our festival goers managed to put away over 7500 pints of ale and over 1100 pints of cider & perry. That’s 1800 more pints than Hitchin 2012! Less people: nearly a whole extra pint per visitor… we probably have to thank the weather & pleasant CamAle for this success. Our cider count was about the same as 2012 – we nearly ran out of cider twice but kept going thanks to an extra delivery from Apple Cottage and an emergency re-stock from the Half Moon’s cellar. We did finally have to close the cider bar at 5PM on Saturday, if we’d have managed to get more cider we’d have smashed our previous cider records. Lesson for next year: buy more cider.

Our Beer-of-the-Festival was Bartrams Comrade Bill Bartrams Egalitarian Anti Imperialist Soviet Stout (sponsored by Garden City Marquees). The name is quite a mouthful, and also the beer – a luscious 6.9% imperial stout. In such fine form was this beer at our festival that it has won the prize by a clear margin despite being the first beer to run out – before the half-way mark! This is an impressive feat in a competition that lends an advantage to those beers that last a while longer. The runner-up was our local Buntingford Brewery’s festival special: Hitchin Hedgehog (sponsored by Holitas Limited). This beer was produced by our North Hertfordshire brewery to the specifications of our hosts, the Hitchin Rugby Football Club. Named in honour of the club mascot and with a colour to match the club’s maroon, yet a surprisingly light crisp flavour.

Our Cider-of-the-Festival was local Apple Cottage’s new Ginger Windger. This 6.7% cider came with more than just a hint of ginger, and people kept coming back for more. The runner-up was Wiscombe’s Suicider – an 8% beast of a drink!

The Friday evening presentation of the North Herts Pub-of-the-Year certificate and trophy to Rob Scahill of the Orange Tree in Baldock cannot go without mention. Congratulations to Rob and his staff at the pub, a very well earned award – the Orange Tree won our Most-Improved-Pub-of-the-Year award last year and has maintained the high standards required to win our top prize. The PotY is selected by all CAMRA members who score beers in our branch area, the 5 pubs with the highest average scores on beer quality were short-listed and members asked to complete a final survey to pick the ultimate winner.

As usual we have our partners the Hitchin Round Table to thank for being a part of the team, and this year we thank the Hitchin Rugby Football Club as well. The HRFC didn’t just provide the venue – they made a core contribution to the festival organising committee and supplied much volunteer effort to boot.

The additional space provided by the new location permitted us to bump up the food offerings. As usual the Wobbly Bottom cheeses and selection of olives and things was available. In addition to this we had a BBQ outside, plus local chef Martin Burke in the kitchen constantly churning out a selection of great quality pub-style foods, and Now Now Foods with their tasty “bunny chow” (South African curries served in a hollowed out bun). On our feedback forms compliments flowed in on the much wider food variety, in addition to the great venue and atmosphere. This was a more family-friendly festival than we could ever provide at the Hitchin town hall and thanks to this people came, relaxed, and stayed a while.

Finally, a message from branch chair Gillian Richardson: “As Chair of North Herts CAMRA I would like to thank all of you who came to this year’s Hitchin Beer & Cider Festival and made it an extremely enjoyable event. My particular thanks go to the festival co-ordinators from each of our three organisations: Jon Kirby (CAMRA), Simon Goodlad (Hitchin Rugby Football Club) and Andrew Blackstock (Hitchin Round Table), along with their core team who put many hours of their own time and effort into planning this festival and making it as successful as it was. I especially thank all of those volunteers who gave their time and muscle power and am grateful to our sponsors. The local Comet newspaper team have been especially helpful in ensuring the success of the event as our core event sponsor and PR machine. Thanks in particular to Comet editor Darren Isted for officially opening the festival and supporting us in our hunt for a new venue, and Hitchin area reporter Laura Burge for keeping Comet readers informed in the lead-up to the event. It was due to an article in the Comet being spotted by a core member of the HRFC that the club approached the CAMRA branch with the offer of using their excellent clubhouse and marquee for the festival.”

Will we be doing a Hitchin Summer Beer & Cider Festival in 2014? I think the answer is a resounding “hell yeah!”