CAMRA St HelensSt Helens Beer Festival 2009
1st to 3rd October 2009
Welcome to the Official St Helens Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) Beer Festival Website.
The website was set up to provide to provide you with up to date information on the first offical St Helens Beer Festival
run by CAMRA.
1st St Helens Beer Festival 2008
Beer, Nostalgia, and the Odd Penguin or Two !
The 27th – 29th November 2008 saw St Helens hold its first ever CAMRA organised beer festival though the event unfortunately co-incided with the most severe bout of cold weather for November with freezing fog the highlight of much of the weekend.
Some CAMRA members may possibly recall that a couple of years ago CAMRA criticised the incorrect use of CAMRA’s logo and good
name to promote a commercially-run beer festival in St Helens which was organised by a local businessman and had nothing to do with CAMRA.
This was an event which gained mixed feedback from the real ale enthusiast some saying that it was time that the town had its own event
distinct from the Liverpool festival and others unhappy with the quality of beers and lack of knowledge of many of the staff recruited to
work at that particular festival.
Indeed it could even be speculated that that this earlier festival sowed the seeds in the minds of St Helens CAMRA members to initiate plans
to set up their own CAMRA organised beer festival, to show how a festival should be run.
The venue for this now 100% CAMRA run festival (The North West Museum of Road Transport) would, under other climatic circumstances, have been lapped up by all. Even non transport enthusiasts could not fail to be impressed by the range of vintage bicycles, cars, buses and carriages and it’s central location less than a couple of hundred yards from both rail and bus stations was certainly a winner. Although there was an admission charge for CAMRA members to the festival this was actually less than the normal museum admission costs so quite a bargain.
The fact that there was a beer festival at all, and that things ran comparatively smoothly (apart from the sub-zero temperatures, hence the penguins which we are sure you may have seen out of the corner of your eye hiding between the buses) is down to the hard work the organiser Tony Biggs assisted by St Helens CAMRA committee members (a newly formed sub branch of Liverpool & Districts CAMRA).
The beers for the 2008 festival were varied with many sourced direct from breweries so not the standard range which can be obtained from the usual distribution companies and they were all in excellent condition as can be attested to by many CAMRA members and visitors who attended the event. Beers included a Thornbridge special called Suju, beers from Saltaire, Brass Monkey (suitably named!), Sandstone and the newly established Bury brewery Outstanding as well as the standards like George Wrights, Hawkshead, Dunham Massey and beers from the Wigan based Prospect brewery. There were 50 beers in all plus a dozen or so ciders and perries but every last drop had been consumed by the enthusiastic (though chilly) customers by around 9:30pm.
All in all the festival clearly demonstrated that there is local support for the long overdue St Helens CAMRA sub branch and a well organised official St Helens Beer Festival.
For those of you who missed the festival this year and those of you who attended but would like to visit again (and hopefully be a bit warmer this time!) plans are already underway for next years St Helens Beer Festival which is to be held at the same venue on 1st – 3rd October. Transport enthusiasts may also wish to note that the vehicles on display are ever changing as the Museum takes on new vehicles for renovation projects.