2013 Beer Festival Details

The annual Beer Festival at Delapré Abbey is usually organised by the Northamptonshire Branch of Campaign for Real Ale (Northants CAMRA). Earlier in 2013 we announced that we would be taking a year off to re-group and return with a stronger festival team in 2014.

The Northampton Borough Council Events Team is holding a Beer Festival at Delapré Abbey on 24th – 26th May 2013 in order to fill this gap in the town’s event calendar. When visiting in 2013, please be aware that there may be some differences compared to previous events.

We are pleased to publish details of the Beer Festival on this website in order to provide information to visitors. All details shown here have been published by Northampton Borough Council on their own website or the Love Northampton Blog.

The Northants CAMRA team looks forward to seeing you at our Beer Festival in 2014!

LocAle — Local Ale from Northamptonshire

LocAle — Local Ale from Northamptonshire

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Looking forward to the 2013 Beer Festival

Organising the Northamptonshire CAMRA Beer Festival is a little like being a duck swimming upstream in a fast-flowing river. On top all is a picture of serenity but underneath the waterline the little duck is paddling like mad just to get where he is going.

Although not much has been announced at this stage, a lot of the organisation has been done behind the scenes in preparation for the 2013 event. Following the Annual General Meeting more details will be made available.

Dates for your diary:

The Northamptonshire CAMRA Beer Festival will take place on Thursday 30th & Friday 31st May, and Saturday 1st June 2013.

Keep in touch with us

The Northamptonshire Branch of Campaign for Real Ale has now converted the main branch website to a WordPress Blog just like this one. Check it out:

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All over for another year

Over 300 barrels of beer, 800 gallons of cider, 5000 festival programmes, and who knows how many glasses. That was just part of the 2012 Beer Festival.

Thousands of people ate, drank, listened to music, and generally enjoyed the atmosphere and warm weather in the grounds of the Abbey. All the hard-working volunteers can now enjoy the rest of their Sunday in the knowledge of a job well done.

Thank you to everyone who helped out, and thank you to our visitors for making this event such a success.

Packing- up time

Packing- up time

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BEER FESTIVAL FULL TO CAPACITY!

Road Closed

Road Closed

We have had a very busy Beer Festival mainly due to the lovely weather, but now we are FULL TO CAPACITY and we cannot let anyone else in.

Please don’t come down to the Abbey on the offchance that people leaving will allow more entries, as we will have probably run out of beer by that point.
Sorry if you didn’t get in this year, but we have to think of safety and overcrowding issues.

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Get some Cider insider your insides!

the Cider Bar

the Cider Bar

Ingredients: Apples. That’s it. Nothing else is needed to make Real Cider – no sulphites, no flavouring, no glucose-fructose syrup.

Once the apples are picked and washed they are milled and pressed between sheets of muslin to extract the juice. The remaining fruit pulp is a good pig food.

The sugars in the juice ferment into alcohol by the action of natural yeasts on the fruit, so the flavour and alcohol level can vary year-on-year even on apples from the same orchard.

Once the cider has matured and developed it can be racked off into barrels ready for sale. Some ciders have added flavour from natural ingredient like strawberries, raspberries or ginger, but brightly-coloured fruity pop full of flavourings like they sell in supermarkets is a definite no-no.

What about Perry? Simple – start with pears instead of apples. Perry pears are mainly grown in Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire – they aren’t nice to eat but they make a great drink!

What about pear cider? There is no such thing! If it’s cider then it’s made from apples. If it’s made from pears then it’s perry. If your local shop sells a product named ‘Pear Cider’ then it’s either perry, or cider with pear flavouring.

The cider bar is open all day until 11pm as a popular part of the Beer Festival.

inside the Cider Bar

inside the Cider Bar

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What’s for dinner?

Try our 20 incher

Try our 20 incher

Once you have quenched your thirst with a pint or two of beer, cider or perry, you’ll surely feel the need to feed the inner man (or woman). We can’t quite manage to match 300 beer with as many food options, but you’ll still be spoilt for choice!

Starting from the main marquee you’ll find Yuley’s “sausages yule love’ offering German bratwurst and spicy Krakaeur sausages flame grilled over charcoal, including the famous 20 incher!

Also on offer this year is a range of exotic burgers including venison, kangaroo, or wild boar and spring onion.

Next we meet the Codfather offering freshly battered fish ‘n’ chips, along with. A full range of accompaniments. If you love curry sauce then look no further, or maybe mushy peas float your boat?

Simple Simon would be proud to meet our next stall, the Pie Man, with hot or cold pies a-plenty. The beef pasties are well spiced with black pepper, or perhaps you may like to try the Dunmow Flitch with smoked ham, potato and onion?

Also on offer are pork pies with pickle, some veggie options, and the coronation chicken pie with a special spicy filling.

How do you cook a pizza in only 90 seconds? We asked our next stall holder, and the key is a thin dough base and a really hot oven. Wood fired pizza can be yours in a minute and a half. It will probably take longer to choose your toppings!

And that just about wraps it up, apart from our last but not least Mediterranean Wraps stall. Hear the sizzling sound of Morrocan lamb or Cajun chicken, with fresh onions, peppers, etc. all wrapped up for you in delicious soft flatbread.

It should be noted at this time, your humble Webmaster is feeling a rumble of the stomach at the description of all that food…

Get the beers in, and get some dinner inside ya – cheers!

Mediterranean Wraps

Mediterranean Wraps

wood fired pizza

wood fired pizza

The Pie Man

The Pie Man

the Codfather

the Codfather

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Northamptonshire Beer of the Festival

Every year the Northamptonshire Beer Festival is the venue for a blind tasting of the beers from Northamptonshire breweries.

A varied selection of people from our local community including council members, pub landlords, friends and family of the Beer Festival committee all sat down around six tables and were asked to score the beers without knowing its name or the name of the brewery.

The winners of each category are listed below.

Mild: Nobby’s Guilsborough Guzzler;
Bitter: Great Oakley Wot’s Occuring;
Best Bitter: Great Oakley Harpers;
Old Ale: Nobby’s T’Owd Navigation;
Porter: Julian Church 10 Pint Nun;
Stout: Hoggleys Solstice Stout;
Strong Bitter: Great Oakley Tailshaker;
Golden Ale: Great Oakley Marching In.

Overall Winner: Great Oakley Marching In. Congratulations to all the brewers for their hard work and dedication!

LocAle - local ales from our county

LocAle – local ales from our county

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We are open for business!

collecting glasses and beer tokens

collecting glasses and beer tokens

All the hard work of setting-up has paid off, and despite a last-minute rush in the signs department everything was ready for the off!

Our first customer have arrived and after only an hour the south lawn is looking quite busy. First beer sold was a pint of Hoggleys Kislingbury Bitter, and the judging of Northamptonshire ales is due to start soon. Come on down, we are open until 11pm tonight, then open again 12 nooon to 11pm Friday and Saturday.

pouring a pint

pouring a pint

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We are open for business!

collecting glasses and beer tokens

collecting glasses and beer tokens

All the hard work of setting-up has paid off, and despite a last-minute rush in the signs department everything was ready for the off!

Our first customer have arrived and after only an hour the south lawn is looking quite busy. First beer sold was a pint of Hoggleys Kislingbury Bitter, and the judging of Northamptonshire ales is due to start soon. Come on down, we are open until 11pm tonight, then open again 12 nooon to 11pm Friday and Saturday.

pouring a pint

pouring a pint

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It’s beginning to look a lot like a Beer Festival!

Beer Festival Signs - find us on Facebook

Beer Festival Signs – find us on Facebook

It’s a hot day down at the Abbey and the beers need hosing down regularly, not to mention the staff!

Work has progressed with the fencing, the admission and glasses tent has been through at least three revisions but we hope the current layout is the final one.

Signs and banners are going up everywhere, with more to come – many of them couldn’t be made until the layout was finalised and fences put up.

Tonight it will be all hands to the pumps to make the final signs and print 300+ cask end labels, then tomorrow they must all be laminated and put on the barrels they refer to.

Once all the last minute jobs are done – and we are sure to find more that we had forgotten – then the volunteers can take a deep breath and open the gates. Then the Beer Festival will begin.

Beer Festival Signs - CAMRA Banner

Beer Festival Signs – CAMRA Banner

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