No surprises on night 1 that Thornbridge – Kipling (433) was on superb form, already 1 barrel down Thursday late afternoon it’s highly unlikely this 5.2% beer will last into Friday night, never-mind Saturday; the advice here then is to drink it while you can. One that will have flown under the radar perhaps is Great Oakleys ‘Wots occuring’ (196) which is a much more friendly 3.9% but again drink it while you can, the same goes for all the lighter Loddon beers which also appear to be taking a hammering and look unlikely to see out Friday, Bamboozle (260), Ferrymans Gold (261) and Forbury Lion IPA (262) all excellent drinks.

What perhaps is a surprise is Brewdogs nutcase 10% brew Paradox (622) down in the bandstand area is being dished out at an astonishing rate, I’m not sure if made it past last night despite it tasting potent to say the least, popular with students and idiots alike (myself included naturally) it’s worth a try despite an extra 50p outlay.

Some of the beer pricing is questionable with beers sourced locally costing as much as beers from all manner of places round the country, a bit greedy perhaps given that some of the barrels could have been literally rolled to the festival, vote with your feet on that issue mind, I have no doubt they will all still sell out.