ISSUE 53 October - November 2008 the Oxford Drinker Oxford Beer Festival This year sees Oxford CAMRA branch’s beer festival return to the Town Hall, St Aldates, for the 11 th year running. This year, there will be 130 130 different different beers available, with 30 of the popular ones being duplicated, to be ready for Saturday morning. This should ensure a plentiful supply for real ales visitors on Saturday. including Sessions run from 5pm to 11pm on Thursday 16 th , 11am to 11pm on stouts, Friday 17 th and 11am to “whenever the beer runs out” on Saturday 18 th . Experience from previous years shows that the beer is usually running porters and out by about 8pm on Saturday - we take that as a sign of a good festival. Remember that Thursday and Friday evenings are our busiest times - lagers queues can form at the door between 7pm and 9pm - so if you want to sample the beers in a more relaxed atmosphere why not come during the camra award day on either Friday or Saturday. Food will be available at all sessions. winning beers Entrance fee to the festival is £2 (£1 for card carrying CAMRA members). new You’ll need to hire a glass for £2, which is refundable if you don’t want to take the glass home, and buy a supply of beer tokens, as no cash is breweries taken at the bars. Every new member joining at the festival will receive £20 of Wetherspoon vouchers and a free hardback copy of the Good beers from all Beer Guide 2008. the local The festival is run entirely by CAMRA volunteers, who give up their free breweries time, not only to run the festival, but to set up and take down as well. If you are a CAMRA member and want to find out what it is like running a 20 real ciders festival, why not volunteer? It’s good fun, and you also get free beer tokens. Contact details are at the end of this article. and perries 20+ varieties On a technical note, we will be hiring water cooled cask jackets from CAMRA HQ this year. This should keep the beer at a constant of continental temperature during the festival and remove the need for us to continually spray water over the casks, as we have in previous years. bottled beers So please, do come along to our festival. It’s an event that has proved very popular in previous years so let’s make this one a success too. Contact details for volunteers (or general enquiries): inside this issue: Tony Perry 07528 241113 / [email protected] beer festival reports pub of the year voting the free newsletter of the regional Aunt Sally match Oxford City Branch of CAMRA festival and branch diaries www.oxfordcamra.org.uk Witney pubs review - part 2 issue 53 what's on Neil Hoggarth Meetings and events are Saturday 18 October and moving on to a city centre relaxed and friendly. Members Regional Membership crawl. and non-members are Committee Meeting welcome at all events. At the Oxford Beer Festival Tuesday 4 November Town Hall, Oxford 7.30pm Saturday 4 October Branch Meeting 11.30am Tuesday 21 October, 7.30pm Waterman’s Arms, 7 South Beer Festival Publicity Rural Pub Survey - West Street, Osney Island, Oxford Crawl of Reading Oxfordshire OX2 0BE. Meet at Oxford Station in good Meet at the Lamb & Flag for time for the 11.30 train. 7.30pm. Contact the Social Saturday 8 November Secretary to book a place. Neil 1pm Monday 6 October Hoggarth, 01865 794438, Regional Meeting 7.30pm [email protected] The Woolpack, Banbury. Branch Meeting Rose & Crown, 14 North Saturday 25 October Tuesday 25 November Parade Avenue, Oxford 12 noon 7.30pm OX2 6LX Pub Crawl with visiting Rural Pub Survey Meet at the Lamb & Flag for Friday 10 October, 7pm Rugby Branch 7.30pm. Contact the Social Beer Festival Publicity Starting at the Old Bog Secretary to book a place. Crawl of Oxford Brewery, Mason’s Arms, 2 Neil Hoggarth, 01865 794438, Meet at the Lamb & Flag, 12 Quarry School Place, [email protected] St Giles, Oxford OX1 3JU Headington Quarry, Oxford Listed in the Good Beer Guide 2009! THE EAGLE AND CHILD Fabulous Fish & Chips! FOOD SERVED 10 AM TIL 10 PM DAILY SERVING BRAKSPEAR BITTER, OLD HOOKY & GUEST ALES • Weekly Quiz Night - Sundays 9pm • Ale and Fish Sampling • Halloween Party • Children in Need Charity Event 49 ST. GILES, OXFORD, OX13LU TEL 01865 302925 page 2 the Oxford Drinker october 2008 ChesterHelene Augar Arms beer festival On Friday 22 nd August 2008 we sections providing covered a half pint or pint of each gathered for a branch social at seating areas. It was an beer. While this seems a The Chester Arms pub for their improved set up from last year good incentive to try different annual beer festival. This is a as the marquee had been styles of beer and to promote real community pub located on relocated from the far side of the food in the pub, and the Chester Street, just off the the garden to just outside the pub probably had the best Iffley Road in Oxford, and there pub, which enabled punters to intentions behind it, was a good family friendly feel avoid getting muddy feet unfortunately it seemed a bit to the festival. crossing the garden. of an unrealistic achievement. In addition to the I calculated that I would have beer they had 4 real had to drink on average 3½ ciders available pints a day over 4 days in a which were all well row which is well over the received. These all recommended daily amount came from Westons for men or women to drink and ranged in (information from the NHS strength from the website www.units.nhs.uk ). Bounds Brands Therefore this offer could Scrumpy at 4.8% encourage binge drinking, ABV to the award something which CAMRA winning and popular tries to campaign against, so Old Rosie at 7.3% the pub may wish to ABV. reconsider this offer next year. The organisers had decided to The pub were offering a free Overall the festival was well go for quality over quantity, Sunday lunch to customers run with a welcoming and reducing the barrels of beer who drank a pint of each of the friendly atmosphere, with from 22 last year to 14 this 14 beers over the course of the plenty of activities for children year. They also had 3 beers weekend, providing customers (including a trampoline in the available on the hand pumps at with an “Ale Trail Record” to be garden) and a good time was the bar. Their decision to stamped with each purchase of had by all. reduce the number of beers to concentrate on the quality seemed to work as all the ones I tried were very good indeed. The beers ranged in strength from the 3.6% ABV of the Tring Brewery’s Side Pocket for a Toad to the 6.5% ABV of the White Horse Brewery’s The Governor. This strong beer was named by the pub as their star of the festival, and although some of us found The Governor to be rather sweet, it was still a good beer in good condition. The barrels were under a section of a marquee in the garden of the pub, with 3 other the Oxford Drinker page 3 issue 53 Around the county Helene Augar The Branch held another although serving food if inside briefly, got back in the popular rural pub surveying trip customers chose to eat. It is a cars and carried on the survey on the evening of Tuesday 16 th smaller pub with low beamed to the next pub. The reason we September, with a couple of ceilings, rustic plaster, and red didn’t stop is that The Railway members taking a night off and black quarry tiles on the is now an Indian restaurant drinking beer to kindly drive us floor. It was busy for a week rather than a pub. From our to the southern part of the night and the clientele included fleeting glance inside we saw branch area. The good news a pub cat! They were serving they did have 1 hand pump for the drivers was that the beer on 2 out of the 3 hand serving a real ale, Courage pubs we visited were very pumps - Wells Bombardier and Best, but we felt that it was the close together once we had the Appleford Brewery’s type of place to visit if you wish arrived in the region, less than Brightwell Gold. This is another to sit down to a full meal rather 10 miles from Oxford. freehouse and the landlord than just go for a quick pint. chooses to keep a local beer We started at The Chequers on one of the pumps (which The final pub we visited was in Burcot which has been a CAMRA supports with its very close by - The Wagon pub for around 400 years and LOCALe campaign) and and Horses . This is a New is an old thatched-roof building regularly changes the beer on Wood Inns pub with a good on the main Abingdon Road. the other 2 pumps. selection of beer. We received The interior has black and another warm welcome and white décor, which looked to The third pub of the evening, had a choice of all 3 pumps: have been redecorated fairly The Barley Mow was just Wychwood Big Bertha, Evan recently and carried out quite around the corner, still in Evans Harvest Home and sympathetically.