Another Successful Doncaster & District CAMRA Beer Festival

More than 2,500 beer lovers descended on The Hub, Doncaster from the 12th-14th April for the 'Doncaster and District CAMRA’s 22nd Annual Beer Festival'.

The festival, which coincided with the centenary of the voyage of the Titanic, featured more than 100 cask beers, including one named after Doncaster’s own Titanic survivor. Jacqui Ridgeway, grand-daughter of Balby-born Harry Senior, visited the festival with members of her family to find that the beer named after her grandfather had been named Best Bitter of the festival.

Harry Senior Bitter, brewed by the Titanic Brewery of Jacqui’s home town of Stoke-on-Trent, was one of many beers which had completely sold out by the end of the festival. The organisers can count themselves well pleased with the outcome.

Jacqui and her family were not the festival’s only special guests. On Thursday evening the Civic Mayor of Doncaster, Eva Hughes, visited the festival along with her consort, Councillor Derek Hughes. After being shown around the festival’s bars and sampling a beer from her native Denmark, the Civic Mayor and her consort joined the beer tasting panel to help choose the Champion Beers of the Festival.

For the record, the Champion Beer of the Festival was Ballymoss from Sheffield’s White Rose Brewery. Sheffield also provided the Stout or Porter of the Festival with Steel City Shakti Clag. The other category winners were Rough Draft Junction 51 ( Bitter of the Festival ) and Fuller’s ESB ( Speciality Ale of the Festival ).

As always, entertainment was a feature of the event. On Friday night local band Strange Triangle played their now-customary set for the festival crowd. Saturday offered a diverse mix as the Frickley and South Elmsall Brass Band played in the afternoon. Then on Saturday evening Dr Busker’s unique and hilarious act drew a standing ovation from a large and appreciative audience.

 

 

All in all, a great success. Over 50 new members signed up to CAMRA, boosting branch membership to around 900. Beer drinkers from many parts of the country attended the festival, which is now one of Doncaster’s biggest annual events. Here’s to next year and Beer Festival 2013.