Pig’s Ear Beer Festival
Five! (days of fantastic beer in the heart of East London)
Four! (bars serving cask, keg, foreign beers and cider)
Three! (classic pub games to play)
Two! (hundred(ish) beers to try)
One! (Pig’s Ear beer & cider festival 2025)
Thunderpigs are go!
Thunderpig One calling Lady Pignelope. International Caskbrew are scrambling to save East London from the scourge of boring beer. Get into your pink Rolls Royce and tell your trusty chauffeur, Porker, to head for Hackney’s Round Chapel from 2 to 6 December. See the advert below or, for more information, go to www.pigsear.org.uk or search @pigsear on social media. FAB: Fancy A Beer? We certainly do.
Alex Wall
Dulwich Beer Festival
The 2nd Dulwich Beer and Cider Festival in May went very well. We had a couple of extra beers on and attendance was slightly up on last year. We managed to sell out of both beer and cider. Beer of the festival was SS9 (a 9% ABV stout) by Leigh on Sea Brewery and a trip to present them with their certificate has been arranged for 6 September. The cider of the festival was Dorset Nectar.
Andy Large
Kingston Beer Festival
Another successful Kingston Beer Festival took place in June, with over 1,350 attendees who drank 96% of the beer and all the cider. This compares to 88% sold last year, so perhaps the later date and warmer weather encouraged people to drink more. Our initial intention is therefore to stay with the same weekend (11 to 13 June) next year. Judging for the Southern regional Champion Beer of Britain round for premium golden beers also took place at the festival and the winner was Surrey Hills Collusion (5.2% ABV). We raised over £1,400 for the Motor Neurone Disease charity through the sale of the late Clive Taylor’s collection of beer and pub related books plus cash donations.
John Burns
Ealing Beer Festival
I want to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who volunteered to staff the Ealing Beer Festival, held in Walpole Park, Ealing, from 9 to 12 July. Without our invaluable volunteers, this festival would not have been possible. I am delighted to share that we experienced a modest increase in attendance this year, with approximately 8,000 attendees over the four days. Another positive development is the noticeable increase in the time attendees spent on site. We were just shy of reaching our site capacity limit for several hours during the busiest sessions, which was undoubtedly aided by the pleasant weather we enjoyed during the lead-up to and live days of the festival, reminiscent of the 2022 event. Stay tuned for updates on next year’s festival. We are always seeking new volunteers to assist us in planning and managing the event. If you possess a skill set that could benefit us and wish to contribute, please don’t hesitate to contact me, festivalorganiser@ebf.camra.org.uk.
Ben Hart
Sunshine and success on the railway
The end of July saw the return of the Epping Ongar Railway’s Real Ale & Cider Festival for 2025. This year, spread across the four bars, we featured 88 cask beers, seven KeyKeg lines and a range of cider. There was also a rhubarb mead at North Weald! The mead (from Gosnells in Bermondsey) was especially popular with all 20 litres being sold in two hours! By popular vote, the beer of the festival was Bishop Nick’s 1555, a classic strong bitter at 4.8% ABV. The festival space at Ongar was reconfigured and the additional covered seating space made available was much appreciated on the Sunday when a thunderstorm passed through. The bar at North Weald saw its cask beer and cider range expanded, with an extra ten casks being added to the main marquee by the bus stop.
As ever, we were very grateful for all the help provided by members of various branches of CAMRA. This year, for operational reasons, trains could not operate to and from Epping Forest but this meant that there was always a train at North Weald station, providing around 200 seats close to the main marquee at all times. Epping Ongar Railway has penciled in 24 to 26 July 2026 for next year’s festival but, if you can’t wait until then, the Real Ale Train returns on Saturday 25 October, when buses will pick up outside Epping station for the short journey to North Weald where the fun of ales on the rails starts!
Alan Perryman