In a town famous for festivals Cheltenham’s inaugural CAMRA Real Ale Festival will take place this weekend.
Excitement is growing. Great real ales, viagra traditional ciders and perries, cracking live music and a very special celebrity guest to open the festival: add it all together and you have the recipe for a fantastic weekend’s entertainment.
Cheltenham Branch Press Officer, Tony Lucas, said: “The Town Hall is perfect. It is a multi-room venue, which gives us many options to try out some new ideas, and with a capacity of 1,000 it’s certainly big enough. With around 14,500 pints of beer available over the weekend, and 30 ciders and perries, there will be something for all tastes. And with so many to sample we decided on a half-pint festival glass, marked with an additional third-pint mark.”
The beer list and tasting notes are now live on the festival website at www.cheltenhamcamra.org.uk/craf/beerlist.php. The list is searchable by strength, colour, beer style, brewer location, and even by tasting notes – which means that people can find and list their favourites ahead of the festival.
Festival innovations include democratic text voting for the ‘Beer of the Festival’. Everyone can vote and the results will be displayed in real time. A full festival entertainment programme will take place in the Pillar Room. The ever-poplar ‘Roving Crows’, with their unique brand of ‘Celtic Folk Fusion’, will headline on Saturday night.
Festival tickets cost £6, including a festival glass. Card-carrying CAMRA members will benefit from some free beer tokens. Tickets will be available on the door for all sessions, and some advance festival tickets are available online from the festival website at www.cheltenhamcamra.org.uk/craf.
For social media updates please visit https://twitter.com/CheltenhamCAMRA or www.facebook.com/events/1492114544397647/