Beavertown Ex 18 - what did you think?

Regional Forums United Kingdom and Ireland
#1

Overall … surpassed my expectations.

Friday - really enjoyed … noticably quieter than last years and hardly any queues of note … easy to navigate around and plough through the beers.

Saturday … much harder work … probably the same number of people as last year but queues more evenly dispersed due to lack of A list brewers. Some largeish queues at breweries I would not have expected to have seen them at.

One thing that let this years fest down a little was beer rotation.

There were quite a number of beers that I was keeping an eye out for that simply didn’t appear.

I realise there are always one or two no shows but this seemed way too many for that.

Yet beers didn’t change a lot and some beers re-appeared from both Friday and earlier in Saturday.

Don’t get this … seems they were clearly unwilling to open up kegs on Saturday due to lower overall turnover than last year I imagine.

I paid for that beer if Im honest so dissapointed not to see it offered !

Next year … if there is one I think I will be Friday only.

#2

So almost 2.5K on Friday and 4K on Saturday.

Disagree on beer rotation, We manged over 100 each day, It was harder work on the Sat as moving through crowd was Hard. But on Friday i discovered the beers were turning over much on Time. We always had choices. but not so fast we wouldnt keep up.

Yeah not all beer didnt make it. But i know of a couple that dissapeard in little more than 30 mins on Saturday.

Superstition cracked a new mead only 30 mins from end. Dont know of many breweries who didnt have beers on at the end. If a brewery didnt get put a beer on it was maybe they brought more than needed.

But what did you find missing.

Id say Friday was a near perfect festival, and i really enjoyed Sat despite the Crowd. Sometimes needed to hunt for beer i wanted without silly queue. Buty always managed something we wanted

#3

Friday was perfect from our point of view … but clearly too thin from an organisers persepctive.

I hadn’t seen the final numbers but that split seems about right.

I realise some beers come and go quickly.

Specifics I was looking for but didn’t see and was checking every hour or so …

Fullers Pilot 005.
Siren Calyso.
Marble Export Stout.
A few beers from London Beer Factory.
Pressure Drop Mimic.
2 Casita Beers - asking for a friend and Die Urlate.

Ok … its not huge list but I kept checking for these.

However it’s not a cask festival … it’s piss easy to swap key kegs about … they should have made more effort to do this on Friday.

Pizza Port for example had the same two (common) beers all day start to finish … Skid Mark and Jetty.

#4

Asking for a Friend and die urlate were on, or ive marked them off at least

but Yeah Pizza Port was odd on friday with them not changing.

#5

I overheard one of the brewers saying that they’d been asked to bring more beer but they weren’t getting paid for it. That may be why some breweries were reluctant to start new kegs.

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#6

My expectations were low so I thought it was fine in the end. Beer never looked like running out but it seemed like they overcompensated because of last year and never put some advertised beers on. I was (slightly) disappointed that two Lervig and two Firestone Walker beers never materialised but I tried plenty of decent beers. I did get a little bored by the lack of ‘wow’ but all good.

Saturday vibe was a bit too lary for me. Friday only (if there is a) next time sounds like a plan!

#7

Ups and Downs

Ticketing - easy to buy tickets last year, but you had to commit to go fairly early on. I booked in November I think. Yes I got the refund of £20 per day without having to do anything. £45 per session I thought was just on value for money. As Craig said, you could have drunk £45 of Superstition Mead in less than an hour.

Travel to and from festival - good location near Canada Water tube station.

Entry - minimal queues. I turned up 10 minutes before opening time of each session and got through ticket, security and getting my wrist strap and glass within minutes and then just hung around in the hall. when they opened the gates, there was plenty of volume of space to let us all in quickly without standing on people’s feet

Seating - plenty last year, not so much this year. lack of seats led to a few odd discussions with drunk people who just plonked themselves down on the benches we were sat at. I would want more seating.

Beer - plenty of new breweries, plenty of new beers for someone like me drinking on my own. I was never left wanting more beer. Except the queue for Mahrs went bizarrely long on the Saturday, stopping me drinking as much Pils as I wanted. I was happily drunk on both days. Yes not so many “wow” beers as Dan says, but I liked mostly what I had.

Toilets - fine, only had a little queue

Water - ok, i liked the sinks for washing out glasses, and the bars were washing glasses too

Food - Not Applicable. I had a soft bread roll before each session

People - Friday was a delight. Easy to move around. Saturday busier, but still not awful. Not too many drunk people. Great to see so many RateBeer people and non RB people.

Music - hate it. too load. my only gripe. However on the Friday I did spend some time in the first hall near the entrance as the music didn’t seem to permeate there. The music seemed slightly less loud on Saturday. The Cure song did provide a good reason to start a chat about existentialism with Chriso though.

Overall - I still had a good time. Probably better than year 1 as the beer didn’t run out and the small crowd on Friday.

Will go next year if the format stays relatively the same.