Welland Valley Beer Festival - Sunny Delight

Here's a pictorial view of our weekend at the Welland Valley Beer Festival.

Cider & Perry List at the Spread Eagle, Cottingham

Bound for Plymouth? No, Harringworth to Seaton

Gwynt-Y-Ddraig Ciders at the Marquess of Exeter, Lyddington

More Gwynt-Y-Ddraig Ciders and Perry at the White Swan, Harringworth

Double Decker from the Harringworth to Gretton

Tautus Roks at the Talbot, Gretton

Gwynt-Y-Ddraig and a Whin Hill cider at the Talbot, Gretton

Gretton Beer Festival

The growing success of the Welland Valley Beer Festival in June has often led to talk of a follow-up event later in the Summer. Local villagers must be pretty comfortable with the idea of a beer festival by now, and visitors certainly know where the Welland Valley is. I would have thought that a well organised and publicised smaller event would be almost guaranteed success, even allowing for the ongoing mediocre Summer weather we're experiencing again this year.

So I'm pleased to see that for one day only the three pubs in Gretton have joined forces with the Gretton Sports Club, and organised a festival for the end of August (30th). The Gretton 4 Corners Beer Festival will feature over 40 ales, including a festival special brewed by Potbelly Brewery (see here for the beer list), as well as a small selection of traditional ciders. We will be supplying the Hatton Arms with our Rockingham Forest Cider,and a barrel of Gwynt-Y-Ddraig Barnstormer Cider.

Mark's Law may prevent us from attending this year's event, but I do hope it's a great success. Village pubs need our support more than ever during these difficult times, and when licensees put in the effort to run great events like this, they deserve our support too.

Festival Saturday

Friday at the Welland Valley Beer Festival is predominantly 'locals night', where villagers and those from slightly further afield get to preview some of the ales and ciders ahead of the big day on Saturday. The delightful vintage bus service on Saturday helps to bring folk into the valley from near and far, and the good reputation this event has gained in previous years meant that this year was busier then ever.

We started the Saturday of the festival with a quick cider delivery to the Red Lion in Middleton, which had taken a bit of a hammering the night before. At 10.30am the pub was already full to the gunnel's, with the first buses of the day from Market Harborough, and a coach party from the Alexandra Arms in Kettering combining to create the sort of crush at the bar rarely seen these days, more's the pity! A swift half of something beery with brother Paul and sister-in-law Sue, before we headed up the valley on a red double-decker, barely squeezing under the railway arch into Gretton. The Welland Valley Olympic Drinking Team were already in rude voice down below. I think they disembarked to terrorize the gentle folk of Gretton, whereas we chugged on to Seaton to meet up with 'two-glugs' Tom, and brother Nigel, both drinking pints, both totally out of their depth.

The George & Dragon at Seaton has a very fine view of the Welland Valley Viaduct on a clear day. Unfortunately this wasn't a fine day, but the magnificent spans of the viaduct still looked impressive even through the drizzly mist hanging over the valley. We had a few beers in the garden before catching the bus back to Harringworth for the White Swan, a good pub on any day of the week, but certainly one of the best of the festival. The ales and ciders were set up in the garden/car park, as was a whole host of slightly soggy traditional pub games. A giant Jenga game ensued whilst Nigel & Tom battled it out on the Connect Four. Ray & Gail threw balls down the skittle chute to varying effect. Nice work White Swan people.

The next stop was the beery highlight of Gretton. Three pubs all overflowing with beers, ciders and thirsty customers. The Hatton Arms furnished us with a few juicy cuts from a pig which had been specially fattened for the event, and a chance to compare and contrast a couple of East Midlands ciders. We then headed up the hill to the Talbot's very well organised beer tent, and finally the very, very busy Blue Bell. By the time we rolled back down to the Hatton, things had got very busy here too. It was time to jump on a bus and get closer to home.

Whilst Karen called it a day, and most of the others headed off to Ashley for buses back to Market Harborough, Ray, Gail and I went for a final flurry at the Royal George in Cottingham. The weather had improved by now and after a beer on the decking we followed the Jurrasaic Way to the Red Lion for another final flurry. Excellent Corby band Skibereen were just striking up in the bar, so the final drink became a final few before we finally headed home in the fading light. A great end to a fine day out.

We finished the festival on Sunday with visits to the George at Ashley and Sondes Arms, Rockingham, before a final few in our local the Red Lion. The Castle Inn at Cladecott was the only pub we didn't get to.

This year's festival was notable for two things. Firstly, the bus service seemed to cope better than last year, all praise for which must go to the drivers and owners of the vehicles, and festival organiser Karl Tecklenberg for working out such a good timetable. Secondly, the pubs were at times struggling to deal with the shear number of people enjoying the festival on the Saturday. It would be nice to think that a few of these folk enjoyed their visit to the pub so much, they might like to do it again a few times this Summer, and thereby help out the beleaguered licensees of these fine village locals.

Footnote: Due to my almost complete inability to take photos of this year's event, I've had to cobble together a range of pics from more than one year. The Viaduct pic was obviously taken on a rare bright day in the valley, the picture of the festival bar at the Hatton (featuring a rare sober-ish image of Welland Valley Drinking Team member 'Gattlin' Gun' Rob) comes from the 2007 event, and the bus, which is the one we came back on, is from 2006.

Rack 'n' Roll

A busy weekend of racking off, and barreling up of the Welland Valley Special Cider, ready for the Welland Valley Beer Festival which is less than two weeks away now. The cider is tasting very good, quite fruity and with enough residual sweetness to be described as a Medium.

Details on the beer festival have been slowly leaking out, but all will not become clear until the programmes appear (hopefully) in a week's time. I do know that the Red Lion, Middleton will have 20 ales, plus our two ciders, and a Blakeney Red perry from Broome Farm of Ross-on-Wye. The beer list for the George at Ashley has appeared on their website, and Malcolm Grant of Eve's Cider has told me that his cider will be available at the Blue Bell and Talbot, Gretton; and the Castle Inn at Caldecott. The Hatton Arms will have our two ciders, plus Torkard 57 Cider from 'Our friends in the North' at the Hucknall Cider Co, and a Dabinett/Michelin blend cider and Ayleton Red perry from Broome Farm.

More details as they emerge, particularly with regard to the ciders and perrys available.

Hatton Arms on the Telly....

...Well sort of. Hatton Arms licensees Shaun Williams & Kirstin Ward tell it how it is as part of the Evening Telegraph's Support Your Local Pub campaign (follow the link). There's even a short video of the interview with Shaun & Kirstin standing proudly behind the row of handpumps in the bar. Our Rockingham Forest Cider pumpclip can be seen on the right, stuck to the little blackboard which advertises the current range of ales and ciders.

A nice job from the Evening Telegraph, it's good to see a newspaper getting behind our local pubs rather than jumping on the binge-drinking bandwagon. As you can see, the Hatton is well worth a visit, particularly over the weekend of the Welland Valley Beer Festival, if only to try some of that Hog Roast!

Quality Control

Yesterday I got down to the serious business of quality control. It's important to us that our regular outlets are happy with the product, and that it's selling reasonably well. This calls for regular visits throughout the year, often involving many hours of intensive sampling. Nice work if you can get it! The weather had taken a change for the better, and a stroll down the Welland Valley to the Hatton Arms in Gretton seemed like an excellent idea. The stroll ended up being a bit of a hike, for which my winter-weight body was slightly under prepared, but this is fine walking country, and it was well worth the effort.

The cider we delivered to the Hatton is selling well, and it's tasting pretty good too even though this is an early batch not quite at it's best yet. The good news is that our cider will only improve from here on in, and if we get a few more days like this one, the sales curve can only go upwards. The picture above shows the view from the smart decking at the rear of the pub. Though a little hazy, the picturesque village of Lyddington can be seen across the valley.

Back home the brilliant white pear blossom has now emerged, and right on time some of the ciders have started a secondary 'Spring' fermentation. I've had to pop airlocks back on one or two as the fermentation is quite vigorous. In olden days, before the role of yeasts in fermentation was widely understood, it was thought this spring activity was somehow associated with the arrival of the blossom itself. We now know that it's simply the warmer weather sparking the yeast into life again, or more rarely the presence of a Malo-lactic 'fermentation'. This isn't a fermentation at all, but a benign bacterial process which converts the Malic Acid in a cider into the less sharp-tasting Lactic Acid. Our ciders are not too sharp anyway, but the Malo-Lactic process is desirable because it can also produce additional complex flavours in the cider. Either way, activity at this time of the year is common and certainly not undesirable, though if the storage vessels have been sealed down tightly, it can lead to alarming bulges and maybe even explosions in the ciderhouse!

Hatton Arms

There are many fine pubs dotted along this part of the Welland Valley, and we've been lucky to visit most of them over the last couple of years. One of our favourites right from the beginning was the Hatton Arms at Gretton, a thatched village pub constructed from the local ironstone which gives many villages around here a touch of the Cotswolds in appearance.

The Hatton was lovingly renovated in 2004 by licensees Carl and Lisa Butler, and has been run by them with just as much care, and attention to detail. The Hatton is a true locals pub, but also does a fine line in high quality food. From the outset there has been an emphasis on sourcing local ingredients, as well as local ales from the Great Oakley brewery, so our locally produced cider has fitted in nicely with this ethos.

Recently Carl and Lisa have decided to pass on the reigns of the business to the incumbent chef Shaun, and Kirsten who has worked the front of house since the early days. Rural pubs like the Hatton rely on the regular patronage of local villagers, as well as the passing trade, particularly throughout the Summer. On our recent visits to the Hatton it has been pleasing to see the bar buzzing with local trade, and it's to be hoped that a decent bit of Summer weather will bring a similar buzz to the terraced decking this year.

Rockingham Forest Cider is now available at the Hatton, and we aim to supply our ciders throughout the Summer months, including the Welland Valley Beer Festival in June.