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West Bridgford Monarchs (hockey club) Beer Festival – Thu 3rd -> Sat 5th March

Thursday 3rd March 6pm – 11pm / Friday 4th March 4pm – 11pm / Saturday 5th March 12 midday – 11pm

The previous WB Hockey beer festival was in November, I reviewed it here and I had nothing but praise for it, I’ve been to many of these now and they offer a great atmosphere and most importantly the organisers always choose top beer, as well as charging a very fair £2.40 a pint they set it up a week prior to the festival.

WB Hockey

Good cheap food, and well priced beer, yes please.

If you fancy looking at the previous festivals list it’s here but without further ado, here’s the March list (not listed is an undisclosed scrumpy cider)

(A very pale to E very dark)

E BEARTOWN PANDAMONIUM 4.8% Strong Congleton stout
B BLINDMANS GOLDEN SPRING 4% Straw coloured brewed with lager malt
B BLUE MONKEY APE ALE 5.2% Pale strong and very drinkable
A CASTLE ROCK HARVEST PALE 3.8% The award winning pale
A COPPICE SIDE SCARY CROW 5% A strong blond from new Heanor brewery
C DANCING DUCK 22 4.5% Another new brewery with growing reputation
A DERBY BREWING PERFECT 10 4.5% Pale golden ale with hoppy finish
A KELHAM ISLAND PALE RIDER 5.2% Infamous Sheffield pale ale
C MAGPIE JPA 5.2% A special brewed in honour of the landlord of the Globe
B NEWBY WYKE HMS REVENGE 4.2% Golden beer with fruit / floral hop aromas
A NOTTINGHAM BULLION 4.7% Triple hopped premium golden beer
A OAKHAM BISHOPS FAREWELL 4.6% Golden ale with citrus and dry hoppy aftertaste
A OSSETT SNOWDROP 4.2% Very pale beer with malty hints
C PURITY UBU 4.5% Premium amber ale
A ROOSTERS ORANGE BLOSSOM CREAM 3.9% Very pale beer with citrus aromas
E SARAH HUGHES DARK RUBY 6% The best ruby mild from Sedgley W. Mids
C SHARPS DOOM BAR 4% Balanced blend of spicy hops and sweet roasted malt
B SUMMER WINE ZENITH 4% Dry hopped pale ale with notes of lime

How do you get there? well, jump on the number 10 bus; where Asda is you need to get off at the stop just after it (assuming you are coming into West Bridgford from town) then it’s a 7/8 minute walk up the main road, next to the fire station. Check out the WB Hockey website for more information.

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Nottingham Beer Festival 2011 : what to expect

Nottingham Beer festival, 13th October 2011 -> 15th October 2011.

We will be tweeting live from the festival Thursday and Friday, if you fancy following us to get live tweets on what’s worth drinking, follow us @NottsBrew

October 2011 update : beer list released! 928 currently, click here for the list! stuck? check out our what to drink guide!

September 2011 update: 900+ beers have been confirmed as have 120 ciders/perries, get your drinking hats on people.

June 2011 update :Well it would appear that this year is indeed going to break all previous records with the organisers aiming for a monsterous 1000! Ales, ciders and perry sellections are all due to increase even further on last years gigantic selection and to cater for this a new ‘mini token’ system is coming into play, as well as a third of a pint being offered for the first time to allow for even more variety than ever.

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With last years Nottingham beer festival still in recent memory lets take a look at what this years Nottingham beer festival 2011 could bring, and hopefully help attract more people from around the UK to visit. Despite last year having well over 800 beers available, yes that’s more beer on offer than even the GBBF (Great British Beer Festival) it seems a host of potential visitors are yet to sample this truely unique event, infact many still have never heard of it!

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Last years list met expectations of even more! as demanded from festival goers, infact so much so it’s almost daunting if you show up with no idea what to have, hopefully this year some kind of colour wheel system will be implemented to give you more of an idea of what you’re buying.

Can the organisers squeeze in more? we spoke to Steve Westby after the festival close last year and whilst the grounds are vast, the amount of usable flat land is almost up to its limit, though with that said I’d imagine they will be keen to break last years record! edit – we have recently read that they’re going to try and break their own 848 record!

If you’ve never been you can see the grounds here the main marquee area used is to the left of the castle in the main picture, with smaller marquees setup above near the bandstand.

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It's easy to forget you're in a castle grounds at times, despite not being allowed to wander round inside in a full suit of armour singing 'take me home' the surrounding area constantly reminds you of how special this is.

We wrote a few articles regarding last years beer festival including our review but the best piece of advice we can take from previous festivals is get there early, if you want to try all the beers go Thursday, and if you must go on Friday late, or at all Saturday consider pre-purchasing tickets as the beer turnover rate is astonishing; the number of festival goers will be north of 20,000 so popular beers can start to sell out Friday afternoon, even if they put on multiple barrels!

2010 was hands down the best festival yet improving on every aspect of previous years, if they even match nevermind exceed last years it will yet again be unmissable.

We will keep updating this article as the year progresses (last update 6th October 2011) leave us a comment if you have any questions.
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Nottingham (Robin Hood) beer festival, 800 beers, my top tips!

So the Nottingham beer festival is confirmed at having around 800 beers, toppling the already heady heights of last years 700, now that’s a lot of choice…

So here are my runners and riders for the festival, after-all horse racing and beer festivals are very much alike, they’re always full of stupid people who don’t really know what they’re doing, and some mare always ends up on its back.

Nottm

I’ll get the obvious one out of the way first, if you’re not from Nottingham, or if you are and have been living under a rock (maybe castle shaped) you need to try 3 Castle Rock – Harvest Pale it wasn’t made supreme champion of Great Britain for a laugh.

So, if you’ve not tried any of the below, here are my home bankers for a decent drink,

104 Blue Monkey – Evolution 4.3%
132 Derventio – Venus 5.0%
261 Loddon – Ferrymans gold 4.4%
263 Loddon – Hoppit 3.5%
344 Potbelly – Potbelly best 3.8%
361 Nottingham – James Morton’s legacy 3.8% (although I think it’s supposed to be James Fellows of Fellows Morton & Clayton)
382 Rebellion – IPA 3.7%
418 Steel City – Masters of the spooniverse 4.2%
431 Thornbridge – Hopton 4.3%
432 Thornbridge – Jaipur 5.9%
433 Thornbridge – Kipling 5.2%

Bandstand Area

620 Brewdog – 5AM Saint 5.0%
623 Brewdog – Punk IPA 6.0%
647 Fat Cat – Cougar 4.7%

Beers on ‘reserve’ status,

RES Leila Cottage – Ace Ale 3.8%
RES Oldershaw – Caskade 4.2%

If you like the dark stuff it’s hard to see past,

101 Blue Monkey – 99 Red Baboons 4.2%
399 Sarah Hughes – Dark Ruby 6.0%
712 O’Hanlons – Dry Stout 4.2%

Of course, the real point of a beer festival is to try beers new to you, so don’t forget to do some blind shooting and choose some randoms! drop a comment below of any tips of your own.

The Nottingham / Robin Hood beer festival opens Thursday at 11am and ends Sunday 3pm, we will of course be updating live so check back for more beer suggestions, and again leave some of your own. official website

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Nottingham beer festival preview.

October sees Nottingham castle open its grounds once again for the Nottingham beer festival, so let’s take a look back to 2009; and on to what we can expect for this years even bigger 2010 festival.

Nottingham beer festival Thu 14th to Sun 17th October 2010, official website

Thursday October 8th 2009 I was in London drinking in Dirty Dicks (it’s a pub, look it up) an amateur mistake for on my return to Nottingham on the Friday I was greeted at 4pm with a lot of the ‘well known’ (Thornbridge being a prime example) fantastic beers empty, already! This happens every year, and no matter how hard the organisers try with 700 beers it’s nigh on impossible to predict sales patterns, you could argue that they should increase the number of beers with a reserve barrel, but no doubt this comes a the cost of variety.

700 is now the benchmark, if you want to try the well known best beers without disappointment ensure you get down on the Thursday, but remember beer festivals aren’t all about the big boys, what about the little known brewer with an absolute gem? or the darkhorse that slipped under the radar? check back in the coming weeks for our ‘top tips’ before the festival, and any gems we unearth whilst there.

nottm

The Nottingham beer festival takes some beating, I would go as far as saying the only thing that can realistically beat the 2009 festival, is the 2010 festival. It seems finally that some of the stereotypes are being shaken off, you could see this in 2009, it was a huge mix of young and old, the pull perhaps is that it’s not all beer, there’s a ton of cider, fruit wines and fruit beers, and if you really want to tread carefully there are lagery type concoctions dotted around, but don’t expect to find a Carling tent, this isn’t Donington. (though the toilets are comparable)

 

Stick with us on the run-up, it’s going to be huge.