Real ale meets its match… at footy stadium sell-out!
By: JimOldfield
November 13th, 2012
Real ale has met its perfect match in Rotherham – where drinkers went in droves to the new football stadium to score a pint at the town’s first official CAMRA festival.
A sell-out crowd turned up at Rotherham United’s New York Stadium at the weekend – but sadly for the Millers, they were only there for the beer as Rotherham CAMRA took over on an away-day fixture list to serve 50 ales from across Yorkshire and Derbyshire.
Drinkers had snapped up tickets well in advance for the event, which was organised by the same team responsible for the giant and unmissable Rotherham Real Ale and Music Festival held annually at the town’s MAGNA science museum.
And although not staged on the same vast scale, all the MAGNA hallmarks of great beers and music were present.
And so too was a birth – as Rotherham’s newest brewery, Chantry, was finally introduced to the world. Beer lovers wet this baby’s head in style by drinking through nine casks of its first ale New York Pale, in just one evening session.
Rotherham CAMRA chairman, Steve Burns, said: “There is a real appetite for real ale in Rotherham.”
“When we very first decided we were going to stage a branch festival and word got out, we were receiving calls within the hour from people saying ‘if you’re holding a beer festival, then we’ll take 50 tickets!’ We sold 200 tickets before we’d even started planning it.”
” However CAMRA HQ limited us to three pints per drinker – which is what research shows the average beer festival visitor consumes – except we’re already starting to run out of beer and it’s only Saturday lunchtime.”
To read more about the Hand-Pumped visit to the festival, visit our features page via the link below.
Hand-Pumped link:
Hand-Pumped festival feature
