Beer Festival Awards 2009
From: InnSpire - Issue 79 – June 2009
 Thanks to the generous donation of unused beer tokens (topped up by Chesterfield CAMRA) we were able to donate £500 to this year’s February Beer Festival opener’s chosen charity.
A happy group of drinkers converged on Brampton Brewery to meet up with Chesterfield MP Paul Holmes and to enjoy a few excellent beers, some scrummy pizza and a spot of cheque presenting. During the evening Trevor Maris, one of our Beer Festival organisers, presented the money which Paul accepted on behalf of Fairplay, a charity which helps disabled children and their families.
It was a night of double presentations, with Trevor also giving Brampton brewer Chris Radford, his certificate for LocAle Beer of the Festival.
 This was an award voted for by drinkers at the Festival and was for Golden Bud Speciale; a new take on the popular Golden Bud. Chris was suitably pleased to add another certificate to the growing number adorning the wall of the brewery.
Before, during and after the presentations there was much beer drinking and pizza eating amongst all concerned. Thanks to everyone at the brewery for their hospitality, and for allowing us to present the cheque to Paul Homes during the evening.
A few weeks earlier, on a visit to Abbeydale Brewery in Sheffield, a minibus load of Chesterfield CAMRA members met brewer Patrick Morton to award another Festival drinkers’ prize.
 This time it was the turn of Abbeydale Deception to take the Yorkshire Beer of the Festival accolade. During this brewery visit we sampled several beers straight from the conditioning tanks, before heading over to their brewery tap, “The Rising Sun” at Nether Green for an after awards drink and ample supply of sandwiches. Once again, we would like to say thanks for the warm welcome and for feeding and watering us all!
Still to come - Lancashire Beer of the Festival, which means a visit to central Manchester to see the team at Marble Brewery at The Marble Arch - and of course, to sample some (all) of their excellent beers... If you would like to join us - keep an eye on our social diary at www.innspire.org.uk which is constantly updated.
A visit to Mansfield Beer Festival.
From: InnSpire - Issue 79 – June 2009
Pauline and I crossed the border on Friday 3rd April to visit our neighbouring branch, Mansfield CAMRA’s beer festival held at the Intake Club on Kirkland Avenue in Mansfield. This was their 18th Beer and Cider Festival, their second year at this venue and our first visit to the club which was certainly a vast improvement on the cold football ground site of 2007.
The Intake Club is about 15 minutes walk from the bus station, just beyond the Bold Forester pub and has two rooms for the beer festival; the Gig room, which is a large room with a stage and a small Marston’s beer bar including beers from Wychwood, and Jennings, and the Lounge, which is a smaller room with plenty of tables and chairs. The Lounge had two small beer bars, a Cider/Perry bar (16 available), a wine bar and a stall which combined the Tombola, Membership Stand and CAMRA Shop. There was also a hot food stall available.
60 real ales were featured in the programme and over half of them were Locale ales (with mileage stated from the breweries). The beers were dispensed through hand pumps and by gravity from the casks. I was pleased to note that there was a wide range of different brews and styles with plenty that I had not sampled before, so ofcourse I decided to make this my task of the day!
The first was Evolution 4.3% by a brand new brewery, Blue Monkey (from Ilkeston) and very good it was too, the next was my favourite from the festival by Amber - Chocolate Orange 4% (a development of the Original Black Stout with the addition of Orange liquor for a fantastic full bodied taste), this was brilliant and if I could break my rules of awarding more than 7 out of 10 for a first try then I would (if this makes sense!) A certain well known couple in our branch would kill for this beer!
The beers that I had ranged in styles included coffee: Eclipse Porter 4.7% from Brew Company, a dark lager: Zeitgeist 4.9% from Brew Dog, a brown ale: Ilkeston Brown Ale 4.6% from Funfair, a weird spicy ale: Dream Weaver 4.3% from Leadmill, a ginger beer: Ginger Helmet 4.7% from Leatherbritches, a blonde beer: Wellow Gold 4.6% from Maypole, an Irish Stout: Paddy’s tout 4.7% from Wychwood and a golden ale: Séance 4% from Full Mash.
All of the beers that we drank were great, kept and poured well, at the right temperature and so on, the price was good too; most at £1.20 a half-pint, paid for by tokens.
It was a short visit (we didn’t stay for the evening session) but we both recommend this delightful beer festival and we would like to thank David Brett and his helpers for organising it, long may it continue. Cheers!
Ray Easter
A Chesterfield Beer Festival review......with a difference!
From: InnSpire - Issue 78 – April 2009
Instead of doing a standard beer festival write up, where we bore you with the number of pints we have sold as well as all the statistics that you would never want to hear, this time we will review the festival in a totally different way, we will just show you what you have missed…
If you missed the festival, click on the image below to download a hi-res pdf version and see exactly what you missed [10.3mb]... and if you were one of the lucky ones who attended, then you might see a few familiar faces overleaf...
Highlights of the festival included… Paul Holmes opening the festival…an informative programme with full tasting notes and prices…Cider, Perry and World Beers…a commemorative festival glass…friendly and helpful volunteer staff…people enjoying themselves drinking real ale…Baz’s Bonce Blower winning our blind tasting of Old Ales…Acoustic Firecracker…Jeff Gaunt and his beer sausages…Giant Jenga…easy to use beer tokens…Simon Davidson’s Ploughman’s…a whole host of shiny handpumps…Sneeky Feelin’…and loads and loads (and loads) of local, Lancashire and Yorkshire beer!
Don’t forget, our next festival is on Friday 30th & Saturday 31st October at The Market Hall, Chesterfield. More details will appear in the next issue of InnSpire.
Chesterfield Beer Festival 2009
Champion Beer of the Festival
From: InnSpire - Issue 78 – April 2009
Quiz night at the Old Poets’ Corner this week was slightly different to other nights as Chesterfield & District CAMRA joined in with guests and regulars and tackled the quiz.
 At half time, as well as the usual free chip butties, a presentation took place which presented the Ashover Brewery Brewers; Kim, Roy and Janine with a certificate for the Champion Beer of the Festival. The award, voted for by festival goers to the annual Chesterfield Beer Festival was for Rainbows End and was presented by Trevor Maris, one of the Festival Organisers.
Rainbows End (4.5%) was first brewed in December 2007 and is pale in colour, it is named after the café that was situated at the Ashover Butts Light Railway terminus, which was an octagonal building with multicoloured tiles that were laid out in the colours of the rainbow.
The café closed in 1939 and was moved to Clay Cross where it had many uses over the years, until 2003 when the land it stood on was sold for redevelopment. The Ashover Light Railway Society are currently rebuilding and restoring it back on the site where it once stood, all those years ago.
Once the presentation was over everyone went on to finish the quiz and it was won by “Mary’s Mates” which was comprised of Chesterfield CAMRA members, Mary, Rhoda, Geoff and Mark (it must have been the beer...). Congratulations were given and the bus left to take everyone home after a wonderful night.
For more info about The Ashover Light Railway Society, please visit their website www.alrs.org.uk and for more information about The Ashover Brewery, including details about their range of beers, please visit www.ashoverbrewery.com
...and there’s more...
Oh yes, there are more awards to come... we will also be organising trips to, and presenting “Beer of the Festival” awards to Abbeydale Brewery of Sheffield, Marble Brewery of Manchester, Brampton Brewery of Chesterfield and Thornbridge Brewery of Ashford in the Water. If you would like to be notified of these and other social trips then please sign up to our branch mailing list. To join, send a blank email to
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or visit our yahoo groups page at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chesterfield_CAMRA
The Market Beer Festival Helpers visit Derby
From: InnSpire - Issue 77 – February 2009
It was a miserable and wet Saturday afternoon in December, but an intrepid bunch of ale drinkers met at Chesterfield railway station waiting to board a train to Derby. As a “thank-you” for helping out at our successful Market Hall beer festival in town, nine of us were on a crawl of some of Derby’s finest pubs.
 By 3pm we were at the Brunswick Inn a few minutes walk from Derby station. Some members of MAD (Matlock branch) were already there and a few minutes later Nigel and Heather from our branch arrived. Together and with a fair number of locals we congratulated James and Graham from the Brunswick Brewery for winning the favourite beer of our Market Hall Beer Festival: Brunswick Railway Porter. The award was presented by Tricky our branch Social Organiser. At this time most of us were supping the two new Brunswick brews, Midnight Express 3.9% and Grillsy’s Restoration 4.6% both very good. I also drank Allgates Some like it Hop 4.5%, Townhouse A’dleyweisse 4.5% (an English style wheat beer and my second best of the day) and lastly RCH Steam Carnival 4.7%. Soon it was time to move there were other excellent pubs to visit and lots of beer to drink.
We hopped in to taxis for the Flowerpot at the other end of the city and home to the Headless Brewing Co. Ltd. I don’t have to describe these pubs to readers as I’m sure every ale drinker in Derbyshire knows them, but the Flowerpot is like a small beer festival with up to 25 ales usually available. I had Headless 5 Gates 5% and Hopshackle Special No. 1 Bitter at 5.2%. Again these were new to me and both very good.
We all moved on towards the river and the Royal Standard (a pub that has been open less than a year and is not in the current Good Beer Guide…yet). It is the Derby Brewing Co Ltds’ brewery tap and very modern in appearance almost like a wine bar, but it has a grand selection of ales. However the blackboard was confusing reading Spitting Feathers by Farmhouse ( a brand new brewery not even in the guide I thought), it took a while to realise it should have stated- Farmhouse Ale 3.6% by Spitting Feathers brewery, this turned out to be my favourite beer of the trip, lovely and smooth and it went down almost in one. I had to have the Derby brews and I did: Blonde Fantasy 4.5% (steady there Geoff), Hop till you Drop 3.9% and White Christmas 5.5%. Needless to say they were all very nice. This pub provided a rack of 5 different thirds and a bowl of cheese for £5. Some of our group took advantage of this and stayed while 6 of us moved on. We saw the Christmas Lights of Derby (quite impressive) on our way to the Babington Arms.
This pub is essential to visit if you are in Derby, again like a mini beer festival with 18 beers available. The best Wetherspoons in the country it doesn’t conform to the norm; all its beers are guests, prices range from £1.49 to £2.10 a pint. I drank Hoggleys Saturnalia 4.6% and Langton Festive Farmer 4.4%, rare stuff indeed and there was plenty more unfortunately the bar became over whelmed later by youngsters “filling up” before they go clubbing. I have not seen the pub so packed before (and there is a recession?) we regretfully decided to leave.
Walking on towards the station, our last pub was the Alexandra Hotel (the birth place of Derby Camra in 1974) also it has lot of memories for me and Pauline as we used to stay here whenever we visited Derby. The rest of our group were already here as was Julian Tubbs whom we got into conversation with regarding what pubs should be represented in the GBG, an issue that will not be solved I think. I drank Exmoor Exmas 5% and Saltaire Winter Ale 4.9% both alright but not exceptional (slowing down at this point) and when some of us decided to get the 9.48 train home Pauline and I agreed. We left some of the others at the Alexandra with their beer and just caught the train in time.
It was a good and enjoyable trip to Derby, with all new beers to me, and I would like to thank Alun and Tricky for organising it all. Cheers!
Ray Easter
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