Beer of the festival, voted by the customers, has been awarded to Smokey Joe‘s Black Beer from the Hopstar brewery in Darwen, Lancashire. This, as its name suggests, is a very dark beer with a slightly smoky flavour, complemented by hints of chocolate. Initially one of the ‘reserve’ beers, Smokey Joe‘s only came on sale on Saturday, but it proved so popular that it soon ran out. Apologies to those who missed it both before and after!
Cider of the festival goes to Ampleforth Abbey cider from near York. This was a clear winner over the other ciders and perries from the more traditional cider and perry producing areas of the country.
Skipton Beer Festival struggled to make it to the finish after customers drank the Town Hall dry. At close of play on Saturday 21st April, only 5 cask beers remained out of the 70 or more that went on sale, and all the traditional cider had gone despite a re-order on Friday afternoon. The final ‘dip’ (which didn‘t take very long!) revealed that we only had about 10 gallons of beer left. Keighley and Craven Branch chair and festival bar manager Colleen Holiday said “This is a phenomenal success and proves what a demand there is for cask beer.” Just over 2000 customers attended and throughout the event there was a great atmosphere. Beer of the festival will be announced soon and a longer report will appear here after we have caught our breath.
We are pleased to announce that Copper Dragon, Timothy Taylor, The Shepherd Partnership and Market Town Taverns have agreed to become the main sponsors of Skipton Beer Festival 2012.
Skipton-based Copper Dragon will be sponsoring the souvenir glasses and will again be running their popular brewery bar in the main hall. Both pint and half-pint glasses will be available (while stocks last) bearing the festival‘s “Ewe knock me for Six” logo. Both glass sizes will also have one-third-pint line allowing us to serve the smaller measure, so allowing customers to try a wider range of beers.
Keighley‘s Timothy Taylor are sponsoring this year‘s souvenir clothing: polo-shirts with the “Ewe knock me for Six” logo on the back. The Timothy Taylor bar will be in the annex alongside the main festival bar.
The Programme Sponsor, Shepherd Partnership Ltd, is a friendly, long-established Chartered Accountants practice with offices in Skipton and Settle. They deliver a broad range of services to mainly local small to medium businesses including accounting, tax compliance and planning, auditing, VAT, and payroll services.
Market Town Taverns, operators of a chain of Yorkshire pubs focussed on real ale, are the venue sponsors. The Narrow Boat in Skipton, our local MTT pub, has agreed to also help out by providing a number of prizes for the prize draws we will be running during the festival.
Local firm Rural Recipes have been confirmed as the caterers for this year‘s Skipton Beer Festival which runs from Thursday 19th to Saturday 21st April 2012 at Skipton Town Hall. Rural Recipes, based in Steeton, provided the food last year at Skipton and have also provided the food and the branch‘s sister festival in Keighley for the last two years.
The venue has been booked, the budget has been approved by the powers that be, so it‘s full-steam ahead for the 6th Skipton Beer Festival. Showcasing the best of British cask beer from Yorkshire and beyond, the 2012 festival will take place from Thursday 19th to Saturday 21st April 2012 at Skipton Town Hall.
The fifth annual Skipton Beer Festival, held in the Town Hall from Thursday 19th May to Saturday 21st May 2011, was an outstanding success. A record attendance of 2,158 customers drank their way through 859 gallons (3,910 litres) of 74 different cask-conditioned real ales and 66 gallons (250 litres) of 16 different ciders and perries. As is usual on these occasions, there was absolutely no trouble reported and a happy, relaxed atmosphere prevailed throughout the festival. An innovation this year was the outside drinking area which proved to be very popular, especially on the warm, sunny Saturday afternoon.
Customers voted Black Band Porter, from the new Kirkstall Brewery in Leeds, as “Beer of the Festival” - Skipton being the first festival to sell their products. This was also the first beer to run out, the second being the new offering from local Copper Dragon brewery - Conqueror. The “Cider of the Festival” award was a major coup for a Craven brewery, Naylor“s of Crosshills, whose excellent “Emporium Press No.2” was a result of their community apple-pressing day last October.
May being CAMRA‘s “Mild Month”, the festival again featured a “Mild Trail” with 15 milds available including light milds, dark milds, a rye mild and a maple mild.
The festival was visited by Julian Smith MP and the Mayor‘s charities, the Alzheimer‘s Society and Parkinson‘s UK, benefited to the tune of £519 from raffles, cash donations and unused beer tokens. Commemorative glasses and T-shirts, bearing the festival logo “A fifth ewe, a fifth ewe - we all fall down!” were very popular and almost sold-out.
The festival committee would like to thank all the volunteer staff and, of course, the customers with special thanks going to the events sponsors.
