Norfolk in way as Tykes lose bids for real ale title
By: JimOldfield
July 8th, 2012
It’s Norwich!
The UK Ale Capital has finally been named… after Yorkshire’s valiant bid to plunder the crown from Norfolk failed by just a DOZEN ales.
Scores of hardened volunteers took to the streets to visit EVERY pub in both cities, in a massive bid to catalogue every single real ale available for the most comprehensive beer breakdown ever.
In the end, York’s 247-ale challenge could not see off Norwich, who scored 259… and in fact, York fell to THIRD place in the real ale rankings, after Sheffield also pipped it, with a total of 257 ales recorded in a survey last year.
Gracious York CAMRA organisers said: “Congratulations to Norwich – but hopefully we’ll be back even stronger next year! And we say a very big thank you to all the volunteers who took part in the survey. It was a huge job and we wouldn’t have done it without you”.
And Norwich CAMRA responded with equal good grace, saying: “It was a close shave, but we pipped York at the post. It was a very entertaining and worthwhile thing to do. Well done to York too”.
The organisers were keen to point out, in the name of responsible drinking, that though their volunteers catalogued over 500 ales in a day, they didn’t actually try them all!
