Each year the Chester Autumn Beer Festival grows in popularity, with this year seeing record ticket sales for the event at the Guildhall. There was a choice of 45 beers and 9 ciders for the thirsty punters to pick from and all agreed that the beers were in excellent condition despite the unseasonably warm weather we had that week. 

On the Friday evening we took the opportunity to present our Pub of the Year certificate to landlord Paul and his cohorts from Old Harkers Arms. Well done to them for the award, and in the interests of research they must have tried every beer and cider between them on the night! Not sure it helped them later on in the pub games olympics though which saw Harkers v The Mill v The Carlton Tavern. Meanwhile, who spotted Radio 2 DJ Mark Radcliffe's guest appearance on drums?

The Saturday afternoon attendance was boosted by lots of out-of-town folks taking advantage of the new online ticket sale facility. We were certainly unprepared for the stampede for food which saw us run out of all hot grub midway through the session! We certainly had a happy chef when he found he had two hours of unplanned drinking but rest assured we'll up the provisions for next year and get him slaving over a hot stove for the full session.

As usual our policy of rationing the beers meant that punters arriving for the Saturday night session still had the full range of ales to choose from, a rare thing for most beer festivals. Beer sales were pretty steady across the board so it looks like we picked a good spread of beer types.

Thanks as usual go to the excellent bands, festival sponsors, the Guildhall, CAMRA staffing volunteers and everyone else who helped with the festival. Then there are the pubs that sold the tickets, the businesses that displayed posters and our David Bailey wannabee Bill McGinley for the pics. And finally let's not forgot all those drinkers whose generosity in donating their unused beer tokens raised £200 for the local Hospice of the Good Shepherd. Oh yeah, and whoever won the edible underpants from the tombola stand we hope he had fun with them!

Beer of the Festival
 
Mickle Trafford based WC Brewery are celebrating a hat-trick of victories after coming out top of the tipples once votes were counted from the 700 visitors to the Guildhall over the course of the weekend.

Having already scooped awards at the festival last year with Caught Short and at the May Charity Fezza with Oui Oui, they landed top prize this time around with Windward Passage, an ale 'packed with exotic fruit flavours' that was originally crafted for the Ship Inn in Handbridge.

It was a tight run thing though. Just two votes behind came Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild while three behind was Murray's Chester Northgate Ale - an excellent effort from a home brewer who utilised Spitting Feathers facilities to try and recreate a former Cestrian beer using a century old recipe.

Fourth place went to Frodsham's Frodsham 800, fifth equal to Thornbridge Jaipur, WC Hubble Bubble Toilet Trouble and Bowland Gold, and eighth equal to Cairngorm Witch's Cauldron, Jolly Brewer Taid's Garden and Titanic Chocolate & Vanilla Stout.