12:30pm Monday 17th August 2009
By James Connell
THE annual city beer festival proved to be a big hit for thousands of people at the weekend and even a power cut could not darken the mood of revellers from far and wide.
The Worcester Beer Cider and Perry Festival at Worcester Racecourse was visited by nearly 11,000 drinkers and ale enthusiasts between Thursday and Saturday night.
A staggering 3,600 gallons of beer were consumed with 1,200 gallons of cider and perry also being drunk.
The festival was forced to close just over an hour before its scheduled closing time of 11pm on Saturday as nearly all the barrels had been drunk dry.
Proceedings were briefly plunged into darkness as the last band of the night played to revellers on Friday.
Festival organiser Bill Ottaway said the power cut happened at about 10.30pm.
He said: “I think the band was draining too much power doing some light riffs, they generated too many amps and the breaker went.
“Everybody went ‘woooo!’ and they just carried on drinking. Within a couple of minutes they had it back on again. All of a sudden everyone got out their mobile phones and they were using them as torches to find out where the casks were so they could get another beer.
“On the whole it was a fantastic festival. We had so many people coming up to us to tell us what a great time they were having.
“It is a shame we had to close a little earlier than expected but at Camra we pride ourselves on serving great tasting beer. It would not have been fair to serve people the last few drops from the barrels.”
Mr Ottaway said those people who arrived on Saturday evening were given a discounted admission price.
Those who enjoyed the festival included Guy Stephen-son, landlord of the Bell pub in St John’s, Worcester, who was enjoying Old Henry, a beer brewed by Hob- sons brewery in Cleobury Mortimer. Roy Bateman, aged 62, of Ludlow, was collecting samples of about 25 beers in plastic bottles to take home with him.
He said: “I have been to most of the beer festivals here in Worcester. It’s a really good festival and it’s so easy to get to Worcester by train which is good because I would not be able to drive.
I will leave these beers for a week – in a week’s time they will taste beautiful.”
Visitors were treated to entertainment from the blues to rock and folk music and a comedy hour by Ben Humphrey and Simon Renshaw.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.worcesternews.co.uk