Wetherspoons Watch 2018 - it's fest time!

Personally I am really not keen on this. I wouldn’t want to create Wetherspoons as a Brewer for Collabs as they are not, they just take larger Brewer suggestions for their Festivals etc. Also quite a few of these so called Festival Specials have become regular beers or used again elsewhere. Seems like a lot of work for little gain to me.

To tell you the truth I had forgotten that they were having their bi annual Fest this week and had no plans to visit a Spoons, I may pop in to one at some point but not going out of my way really. Gone are the days where i used to have a go at getting through them all.

1 Like

Nor me - and I never suggested that? I suggested denoting fest beers or Spoons Collabs with tags, just thought it’d give some interesting stats. Not too worried if others don’t want this though, it’s no biggy.

Popping into my local Wetherspoon outlet on Thursday, we’ve a CAMRA Social in there. Hope they’ve got a few on because we seem to have stopped rotating our cask ales so often.

<*))))))><

Oh right, I haven’t really got into tags. Is there a way of creating specific tags? I have had a trawl round the Admin area and cannot find anything. Unless I am missing the point totally.

Finding Brú Red Ale with our fantastic new search function is virtually impossible. You should know it is an alias of Brú Rua which may be easier, I got there through advanced search.

The Wychwood Hobgoblin IPA in cask for this Beer Festival was produced at Banks’s in Wolverhampton so I have created a new beer for this, look for the Cask version as previously it was all in bottles for Morrison’s produced at Wychwood in Witney.

Of the 30 beers I need 22 if I am to do the full run, which is unlikely.

Same here. Heading for Folkestone Spoons, 2 in Canterbury and Ashford Spoons this evening. See how many I can get.
Friday I am doing 2 in Maidstone
I am in London Saturday to mop up the rest for breakfast before the rugby

Blimey the Oakham Attila is bloody good. Amazing. £2.15 a pint in Dover Spoons. In top condition. Lovely.

Picked up the Exmoor Whakatu and the Saltaire Onyx in Dover, nothing in Folkestone as I had had the festival beers that were on and then the Black Sheep Monty Python and the Cockeyed Pear Mania in Ashford.
The Attila in Dover was beer of the evening though.
Off day tomorrow as I have a lesbian Tomb Raider film evening.
Then Maidstone Spoons X2 on Friday.

Thanks for adding the Hobgoblin one. Re searching for Bru Red, it works fine for me, I haven’t had any real problems with the new search if I’m honest.

So far I’ve just had the Elgood Warrior at the fest. Bit peardroppy for me that one. Hopefully get to try some more tomorrow evening.

Had five tonight, would have been six if I had known the Hobgoblin IPA was a new hit.

All five OK, but the Flying Circus and Springfest were not great; really enjoyed the Oakham Attila and Saltaire Onyx, the Port of Leigh IPA was fine too.

<*))))))><

It’s half nine on Sunday 18th March 2018. Some four days and nights since the Spoon’s Fest started.

I have just posted my eight rates from my two visits, I noted that so few have been drank by people on RateBeer. I am usually 12th or 13th to write about the ones I have, but this year I am third or fourth. I know it’s early days for the Fest, but have our active numbers fell away that much?

<*))))))><

Maybe its the quality of beers available during the festivals as well. I tend to hardly go a JDW pub and give away all my CAMRA JDW vouchers. My reasons for not going are varied, JDW don’t allow dogs (even in beer gardens), the Lincoln (Ritz) one always has beers from the same 4 or 5 breweries, general cleanliness of the place.

Therefore I would never think of going during a festival.

1 Like

I think we’ve lost a lot of people, not just forum wise but rating wise and this has high lighted it to me. You not going to the fests is a personal thing, plenty of others ‘used to go’ on here, hence my post.

Anyway see you at Cotteridge mate.

<*))))))><

I agree, it’s a bit sad to see. Hopefully it’s a temporary setback, we will gain new members etc… and not a symptom of a more serious decline.

Personally, I still rate as much as I used to, but I don’t bother with Spoons so much. When I lived in Bedford, the Spoons fests were a very big deal as there’s so little going on there beer-wise. Now in the East Midlands (OK Leicester isn’t beer city but it holds its own) I can get lots of craft beer, mini-festivals etc without even touching the Spoons.

Plus, the three Spoons in Leicester are a bit… erm… substandard (although the LP still has decent beer choice). I’m still in Bedford a lot, and one Spoons closed there, while the other one smartened up but severely reduced cask beer range.

I think Spoons cask choices have declined since they decided to offer a range of nationals (Doom Bar, etc) in every pub… these now take up over 50% of cask beers in many places. They’ve increased their bottle range, but nothing you can’t get elsewhere or haven’t already had.

Having said the above, I may scour the Spoons for the Irish Ales, which I find difficult to get hold of…

I’ve done all bar 2 of the beers now. Picked a load up in London on Saturday before the rugby game.

The Oakham Attila remains the best beer so far for me. Most of the others got between a 3.0-3.5. Only the Coach House was sub standard.

I think that as good beer distribution gets better, the “need” to chase the Spoons fest beers has lessened.

I still like to do them as I like completing the list. But I do know that I can go to better pubs than Spoons and get better beers