Fests & Crawls > Dover Fest (Feb 2010)

The 17th White Cliffs Festival of Winter Ales hit the Maison Dieu in Dover on Friday 5th February. With around 75 winter and strong ales - around a dozen of these from local Kentish breweries - the festival lasts until the beer runs out on Saturday. Having been to over 30 beer fests over the last 7 years, I finally decided to take the plunge and go from drinking particant to active CAMRA member - and lent a hand with the setting up. Here's what happens:

A delivery lorry brings the National beer order on Monday morning. The barrels are carted off the lorry and rolled along the length of the Maison Dieu basement floor.

They're then stacked onto trolleys to move them around more easily.

Two trolleys, holding a dozen barrels, are loaded into a massive lift. After much manipulation of safety interlocks on doors and barriers, these are sent up to the ground floor - ending up in the main seating hall.

While all this is going on, a pallet of boxes containing around 750 festival glasses are brought in through the front door

At the same time, the scaffolding for the barrels is going up, having also been brought through the front door at 9am.

As the barrels are moved from the seating hall to the serving hall, they're checked off against an inventory and put in approximate alphabetical order.

After all 5 loads have been brought up from the basement - around 60 barrels - they're manouvered into the order that they're going onto the scaffolding

This done, the heavy work of getting the barrels into position takes place: with a team squating them from the floor to the table; and a second team from the table to their final resting place. In a suprisingly short 3 hours, the hall has gone from being empty to having all the essential ingredients of a beer festival. Over the next 4 days, further small deliveries of beer are taken from the local breweries (at least, those that didn't bring theirs up on Monday ); the main hall is set up with seating arrangements; and the CAMRA stands assembled. After some final jobs on the Friday morning, the doors finally open to the public.

Which leaves the most important part - settling down on Friday afternoon to enjoy the beer!

And this may sound clichéd , but it really does taste better after being a part of the effort that's gone into the festival beforehand.


Dan and myself arrived around 2pm - timed tactically before the hordes arrived a couple of hours later - to ensure we didn't have to queue into the 500-capacity venue. Even so, we only just managed to secure a table - which we later found out was probably still free on account of it being next to the musicians table, complete with accordians, folk drums and a penchant for singing. Certainly we appreciated the entertainment more as the afternoon progressed.

Entry this year was £5 (free for CAMRA memebrs), with a couple of quid deposit on the pint glass. Beer payment was in tokens - at a recession busting £1.25/half pint which, considering the beers were 5-10% in strength, was very good value. Glass sponsorship was by the recently opened local Wantsum Brewery (Hersden, Canterbury) - which coincidentally received the "beer of the festival" accolade for Hengist, earned for being the first barrel to be drunk empty.

With quality succinct and descriptive tasting notes, I got through ten different beers by drinking halves, whereas Dan went for the pints.

Brewer

Region

Name

ABV

Wantsum
Kent
Hengist
5.1%
Wantsum
Kent
Portly Pig
5.2
Whitstable
Kent
Kentish Reserve
5.0
Abbey Ales
Somerset
Black Friar
5.3
Beartown
Cheshire
Black Bear
5.0
Bowman
Hampshire
Nutz
5.0
Dorking
Surrey
Red India Ale
5.0
Elland
W Yorkshire
1872 Porter
6.5
Rother Valley
E Sussex
Blues
5.0
Spectrum
Norfolk
Old Stoatwobbler
6.0

We also made the most of the food on offer with sausage and bacon baguettes. With a great atmosphere in the hall, this is certainly one to return to next year!

Links
DDS CAMRA - festival organisers

 

Disclaimer
While a member of the branch, views above are not endorsed by or necessarily the same as those of the branch or CAMRA