Ale makers brew up cash for good causes
By: JimOldfield
August 12th, 2012
Brewers and drinkers are turning to real ale as a new solution – for raising much-needed charity cash for good causes.
In Cornwall, two Skinners ales have been amalgamated to form a new, risqué brew to drum up vital funds for a breast cancer charity.
Betty Stogs and Cornish Knocker have come together to form Betty’s Knockers, as Skinners collaborate with cancer survivor Pauline Giles, founder of charity Bosom Buddies UK.
Betty’s Knockers will debut at the House of Commons’ Strangers’ Bar in October, to celebrate National Breast Cancer Month.
The limited-edition ale will be produced in 2,000 numbered bottles, with £1 from each sale going to Bosom Buddies UK.
Meanwhile in Cullercoats, on Tyneside, brewery Bill Scantlebury is putting up a new Rocket Brigade IPA – with 3p from every pint of the 5.5 per cent IPA going to Cullercoats RNLI.
Big-hearted Bill, who founded Cullercoats Brewery, already helps the RNLI with similar proceeds from his other two beers – Lovely Nelly and Jack the Devil.
So far he has already helped raise more than £2,000 for the charity.
The new ale is named after a rocket apparatus, manoeuvred on a wooden carriage, which was used by the Volunteer Life Brigade to fire lines to ships in distress.
It will be sold across Tyneside and Northumberland, but pubs further afield who would like to stock the ale should contact Bill as per the links below.
James Forster is not a brewer… he’s a urology surgeon.
But the 35-year-old doc is running a charity beer festival in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, to raise money for overseas medical equipment.
He hopes to buy and ship over a £15,000 X-ray machine to a Sri Lankan Hospital.
The Jimmy’s (St James’s Hospital, Leeds) consultant will then use it to treat locals’ kidney stones – when he and seven other docs go there on a charity health mission in December.
Mr Forster said: “I thought a beer festival would be far easier than running a marathon or swimming the Channel… but it’s probably more work and has taken over my life!”
His beer festival – organised with the help of Wakefield CAMRA and Ossett Brewery – takes place on September 8, from noon to 8pm at Blacker Hall Farm, Wakefield.
There will be an impressive list of 20 Yorkshire-based ales on offer, plus a wine and strawberries tent, food and music. Tickets cost just £5.
For more details, hit the links below.
Hand-Pumped link:
www.skinnersbrewery.com
www.cullercoatsbrewery.co.uk
www.charitybeerfestival.co.uk
