The 20th Battersea Beer Festival was organised by the South West London [www.camraswl.org.uk] branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). The festival ran over three days from Wednesday 10 - Friday 12 February 2010, opening from 12.00 - 23.00 each day.
Festival Organiser Chris Cobbold and a hard working volunteer crew of over one hundred made the 20th Battersea Beer Festival a great success. A total of 4,788 thirsty customers attended over the three days. Between them, the staff and the invited dignatories they polished off a record total of 21,384 pints of real ale from the main bar, 48 tubs of cider and lots more German and Belgian stuff besides! Visitors included one group who always make a special trip from Germany for the festival as well as others who had travelled from as far afield as Japan and New Zealand to attend the Battersea event.
More than 150 real ales from all over Britain were available during the festival as well as more cider and perry than we have ever had previously. Once again both bottled and draught foreign beers were also available.
The Beer of the Festival vote was won by the recently introduced Sambrooks Junction Ale which is a strong 4.5% ABV premium ale. This is Sambrooks first CAMRA award and a branch trip to the brewery for the presentation of the certificate took place on Thursday 20 May 2010.
The Cider of the Festival was William Watkins Whisky Cask Cider and the Foreign Beer of the Festival was Verhaeghe Echte Kriek.
The South West London CAMRA Pub of the Year 2009 was announced from the stage at the festival on Thursday. The winning pub is the Trafalgar in Merton. See the main SWLCAMRA website for full details.
We apologise to those who were disappointed on the Friday evening of the 2009 festival - this was due to the unprecedented numbers. We substantially increased our beer and cider order for 2010 so we had enough of both to last through to later on Friday evening this year. The average consumption per customer was slightly higher than in previous years. This was probably because people were able to get served quicker as there was a more even spread of visitors over the whole of the festival.
Once again our excellent caterer, Kam, provided a good selection of hot food so visitors were able to sustain themselves between drinks.
To see some photos of the 2010 Festival see the Photos page or use the link in the menu at the top of the page. These photos can also be seen at www.flickr.com/groups/batterseabeerfestival along with others from previous Battersea Beer Festivals. You can upload your own photos to the group if you have any that are suitable.
The fifth and last of our local pub guides, Along the Brighton Road - a guide to the pubs in and around Brixton, Streatham and Mitcham - was launched at the festival. Our previous four local guides are also still available from selected local outlets and on-line from the CAMRA Shop. [http://shop.camra.org.uk].
Entry to the festival cost £3 (£2 before 17.00 on Wednesday). Current CAMRA members received a £1 discount on Wednesday and Thursday.
Please check back here regularly for all the latest news about the 21st Battersea Beer Festival in February 2011.
For other local CAMRA and pub beer festivals see the Beer Festivals page on the main SWLCAMRA website [www.camraswl.org.uk].
If you have any queries about the Battersea Beer Festival please email info@batterseabeerfestival.org.uk.
As well as being our 20th year at Battersea, 2010 is also the 150th anniversary of our main charity, the world famous Battersea Dogs & Cats Home [www.battersea.org.uk]. They are in the process of building a new cattery and are hoping to raise over £1 million in 2010 to help with the costs of this new facility. Once the new cattery is ready the Home will be able to offer help and care to thousands more cats in the years to come.