The cold November weather proved no deterrent to the loyal patrons of the Watford Beer Festival. Around 1000 visitors over three days helped make this year's event another roaring success.

Punters enjoy a beer and a chat at the 11th Watford Beer Festival

Sedate early scenes during daytime on Thursday 17th gave way to busy trading on Thursday and (especially) Friday night. At times it felt like we'd be overwhelmed by the demand for the 60-plus beers on offer. Treasurer Bill Austin took the decision to order some extra beers for Saturday this year, and this turned out to be a wise decision. Beers from Tring and Cotswold Spring went on on Saturday, along with a back-up cask of the popular Exmoor Beast. Nevertheless, most of these beers sold out along with the rest, leaving us with around 17 left at time on Saturday.

We're used to the popularity of our beer, but we were surprised by the success of real cider and perry at our festival this year. Both Mr. Whitehead's Boxing Dog and Three Counties' Blockbuster (made locally, in Harefield) were nearly empty by the end, with Upton's ciders and Weston's Perry selling very well. This year seems to have seen a general rise in the profile and popularity of real cider and perry, and this seems to have been reflected in CAMRA festivals across the country, including ours.

Every year we ask festival visitors to vote for their top three beers, ciders or perries and the beer with the most points is declared Beer of the Festival. This year's top ten rundown, in reverse order, was:

Harvest Pale is a straw-coloured bitter, packed with fruity flavour. I had numerous remarks from festival customers about the quality of the Castle Rock beer, so congratulations to Castle Rock Brewery for a well deserved win, and congratulations to Exmoor and Grand Union for reinforcing the popularity of rich, dark and warming brews at our festival.

Finally, we'd like to thank all visitors and members of staff who helped make for another successful beer festival. We hope you had a great time and can all make it again in November 2006!

Andrew Vaughan

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