Sell Out Success for Eastbourne Beer Festival

More than 4,500 visitors packed into Eastbourne Winter Garden last weekend for the town’s ninth annual Beer Festival with Thursday, Friday and Saturday night selling out!

The popular event, which has become a firm favourite in Eastbourne’s events calendar, has already received rave reviews via comments on twitter and facebook, with real ale lovers sinking a staggering 13,707 pints over the three day event.

Eastbourne Borough Council Cabinet Member for Tourism and Leisure, Cllr Neil Stanley said “What a brilliant year for Eastbourne Beer Festival with the event going from strength to strength. This is the second year in a row that tickets for all three evening sessions have sold out, with tickets for Friday and Saturday night going months in advance, and it’s testament to the fantastic reviews the event has received over the years.

“This year the real ale menu boasted more than 150 varieties and contained some quirky new additions including Lees’ Coronation Street Bitter. It was great to see visitors and the local community coming together for this excellent event.”

Real ale wasn’t the only hit at this year’s Eastbourne Beer Festival. The cider and perry bar proved busy in the Devonshire Halls with festival goers consuming more than 2,000 pints of cider and nearly 900 pints of perry during the event, with visitors drinking an average three pints per person overall.

More than 900 visitors flocked to the festival for the Saturday daytime session this year, enjoying live music from Band of Two and dancing with Hunters Moon Morris and Long Man Morris.

Saturday morning visitors also saw the judging of a heat of CAMRA’s Champion Beer of Britain competition and the judging panel included the Worshipful Mayor of Eastbourne Cllr Carolyn Heaps alongside local CAMRA members. This year porters were being judged and Hammerpot Bottle Wreck scooped a clear win, and Larkins porter and Fullers London porter took second and third place respectively.

Further awards handed out at this year’s Festival, as voted by visitors, included Beer of the Festival sponsored by HT White Ltd for Boggart Rum Porter, the Star of Eastbourne Award (Sussex Exempt Brewers) sponsored by Harveys went to Pendle Witches Brew, and the CAMRA Sussex Microbrewer Award went to Beachy Head’s Legless Rambler. Beachy Head Brewery’s head brewer Roger Green accepted the award from SE Sussex CAMRA branch chairman Peter Adams.

Other festival highlights included a packed programme of live entertainment, including Cold Shot and the Tourle Brothers who opened the show on Thursday evening, Smugg Jam and the Mojo Makers who rocked the venue on Friday night, and The Cajun Dawgs and Eastbourne favourite Beve and the Beatroots entertaining festival fans on Saturday.

Visitors also got snap happy for the chance to win tickets and tokens for next year’s event with the official Beer Fest photographer snapping more than 400 festival goers who can find their photos on the VisitEastbourne facebook page.

Eastbourne Beer Festival will return next year from 4 – 6 October 2012. For information on local CAMRA activities visit the website or for the latest event news and information on what’s going on in Eastbourne see the VisitEastbourne website or telephone 0871 663 0031.

Picture caption: Bay Life publisher Dianne Dear and husband Ron, storyboarding for Eastbourne Beer Festival at the weekend:

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