Tynedale Beer Festival

Jun 5 2009 by Alastair Gilmour, The Journal

landscape: beer, richard dixon

ANOTHER weekend, another adventure. Tynedale Rugby Club is becoming a bit like Wembley with events stacking up on its pitches to rival the national stadium’s cup finals and AC/DC concerts.

Last weekend it hosted a Living History pageant noisily demonstrating how Roman soldiers battled their way across Northumberland, while on May 25 26,000 visitors enjoyed the sunshine at the Northumberland County Show, which featured every outdoor activity from daredevil quad biking to heavy horses called William, Thomas, Clyde and George.

Both fixtures, however, were starters for the real feast, Tynedale Beer Festival, a three-day celebration of ales that has developed from what rugby club president Andy Deacon calls “a modest business plan” in 2002 to “a proper event”.

The annual festival at Corbridge is a joint venture with Tynedale Lions Club, a branch of the 1.4 million-member, non-political, non-sectarian, international community service organisation. The two neighbours have formed a symbiotic relationship by trading commercial nous, professional strategies, boundless energy and the occasional shot in the dark.

A total of 118 beers and ciders from 60 breweries begin their three-day flow next Thursday for an expected audience of 4,500 aficionados – one of those rare beer events not run by the Campaign For Real Ale (Camra), although the Tyneside and Northumberland branch lent its experience, equipment and personnel in the festival’s first few years and members still hover in the background, ready to offer advice or another pair of hands.

“We actually started planning last September just before the full effects of the financial crisis became apparent and thought it might be affected,” says Andy. “But all the beers were sponsored in record time, so where’s the credit crunch?

“We’re always thinking, ‘Is this going to work’? but we realised very quickly it was going the other way – it’s bigger and better than ever. We’re having to increase the size of the marquee, which stretches from touchline to touchline and have had to cap the attendance; no way can we take any more than 2,200 people at a time.

“It’s actually a great beer festival; we’ve really come of age and grown from this little band of oldies but goodies into a ‘proper’ event – Northern Rail has even come up with longer trains. We now see the need to be covered for everything so we’ve got things like a flood policy and a lost child policy and have had to hold safety briefings – some stewards will have yellow bibs, some will have orange bibs, all with walkie talkies. It’s all PC gone mad, but it’s where we are now.”

Some firms study the beer list and ponder their sponsorship choice very carefully – Patricia J Arnold & Co Accountants has plumped for Liquidity, a new beer from Hexhamshire Brewery, while RMT Accountants has chosen Adder’s Bite from Hadrian & Border Brewery, both pretty neat selections.

“Everybody said when I took on the sponsorship this year that I would struggle,” says festival committee member Judithanne Robson. “But I didn’t, we were virtually full up by mid-April. We have 28 new sponsors this year and the income generated is up by 25%. Last year, we had a record attendance and I am more than optimistic that this year we will even break that. The reason? It’s such a sociable event and great value for money.

“It’s significant that a lot of sponsors this year are from the financial sector and that one of our previous main supporters, an estate agent, has dropped out. We had a lot of new people contacting us – SCM Pharmaceuticals from Prudhoe rang up to say they wanted four beers and made no other demands whatsoever. I think that’s absolutely lovely.”

The company has chosen the cheekily-named Bewcastle Brown Ale from Geltsdale Brewery in Brampton, Cumbria, a business that has exceeded all expectations in the three years it has been in operation. Former archaeologist Fiona Deal, a long-time home-brewer – starting when the family lived on Unst in the Shetlands – took a Rural Women’s Network start-up business course in Carlisle then topped up her knowledge at Brewlab at Sunderland University.

“I’d already set up by then and found that by and large I was doing things in the right way,” she says. “I had always planned on running a brewery and thought it was now or never.” Some of Fiona’s brewing equipment came from the Hawkshead Brewery in the Lake District after that operation expanded out of all recognition. Former cellar tanks have been turned into brewing kettles and conditioning vessels with Fiona’s husband John wiring it all up and a friend in the car repair business bashing the metal. John, who took voluntary redundancy from the RAF, chillingly describes himself as “an electronics warfare consultant” which he translates helpfully as “radar and stuff”.

Fiona says: “I started to develop my own styles in small batches at home – all full mash. I said to John, ‘Make me a brewery’ and he did. Judithanne Robson is keen to point out that it’s not all well-heeled businesses that have approached her with offers of sponsorship. “It’s individuals too,” she says. “A train driver’s wife contacted us because her husband was celebrating 25 years in a job that he loves and regards as his hobby. She wanted to ‘buy’ a beer for him. Wylam Brewery has put on Rocket specially.”

Other sponsoring groups include The Hexham Mathematical Society, who are Newcastle University lecturers, and The Three Amigos – auctioneers from Hexham Mart.

Gateshead-based Myson Radiators has commissioned Myson Select, a new beer from Wylam Brewery, which has also revived Josie’s Dragonfly, a special ale (sponsored by Access Wealth Management) that supports Josie’s Dragonfly Trust, a charity set up in 2007 in memory of inspirational cancer victim Josie Grove. It provides crafts and activities for teenagers in specialist cancer wards throughout the UK plus cash gifts for children whose disease is incurable. They can do anything they want with the donation.

Josie died in February 2007, not long after she had designed a pendant in the shape of a dragonfly. The beer is a Bavarian-style lager brewed to the German purity laws (the Reinheitsgebot) where no additives are permitted to water, hops, yeast and malted barley. It is hopped with the famous Saaz variety from the Czech Republic which leaves it wallowing in citrus notes.

The Newcastle Gentlemen’s Society – “our benchmarks of quality encompass fine wines, superior beers, quality tailoring, exquisite cuisine and fine cigars” – has sponsored Durham Magus. The society’s website is crammed with photographs of roister doisters and attractive roisterettes enjoying themselves at every opportunity. And so they should. In September, they have organised a Fiat 126 Challenge which involves teams flying to Poland, each to buy an example of the classically ugly small car before meeting up and heading home in convoy back through Germany via the ferry terminal near Amsterdam. A set of “challenges” en route will find a winner (the oldest car gets most points to start with).

In its constitution, the club’s rule number nine is: “The Society shall have a mascot. This mascot shall accompany the members of the Society at all major NGS events and is to be treated with the utmost respect. Any violation of this rule by any member will result in disciplinary action and likely expulsion from the Society.”

A request for clarification of the mascot’s origins has been left unanswered. Our guess is it’s a lounge lizard infatuated with AC/DC.

:: The Tynedale Beer Festival starts at 6pm on June 11 and runs until June 13 at 11pm at Tynedale Rugby Club, Corbridge. Proceeds are divided among Tynedale Hospice, Marie Curie Hospice, St Oswald’s Hospice, The Great North Air Ambulance and Tynedale RFC-related projects. For more information visit www.tynedalebeerfestival.org.uk