Festival blog

Staffing forms for 2012 now online

The Great Welsh Beer & Cider Festival is staffed by volunteers from CAMRA, some of whom come from right across the UK to work at Wales' Biggest Pub. If you are thinking of working at the Festival then take a look at the staffing site which is available here

2012 Festival

The provisional dates for the 2012 Great Welsh Beer & Cider Festival are the 7th-9th June.

Sold out Saturday

Well that was the biggest and best Great Welsh Beer & Cider Festival Wales has ever seen.
6000 thirsty customers drank their way through over 20,000 pints of real ale and over 5000 pints of cider and perry.
Sorry we had to shut early but all you thirsty customers drank us dry for the first time ever!
We have learned a lesson from this, next year we shall make the festival even bigger with more fantastic award-winning real ales from Wales and from across the UK!

Frantic Friday

From the office of the boss man:
Another busy Friday at the Great Welsh Beer & Cider Festival draws to a close. The Otley Brewery bar sold out but will be restocked for Saturday - Oxymoron has been the favourite beer of the festival for the organiser - a black IPA - a contradiction in terms and a taste explosion on the tongue with hops and black chocolate flavours - a stunning beer.
We also had the Champion Beer of Wales competition today - well done to the family-run Rhymney Brewery for winning with their Dark. Once again the hobby horse is jumping for joy over the mountains of Wales.

Champion Beers of Wales - full results

Champion Beer of Wales – Rhymney Dark

Silver – Rhymney Export

Bronze – Otley O8

Mild

Winner – Rhymney Dark

Runner Up – Brains Dark

Bitters

Winner - Bryncelyn Holly Hops

Runner Up – Purple Moose Snowdonia

Best Bitter

Winner – Sandstone Postmistress

Runner Up – Purple Moose Glaslyn

Golden Ales

Winner – Otley Colombo

Runner Up – Monty’s Sunshine

Speciality

Winner – Otley O-Garden

Runner Up – Conwy Cwrw Mel

Stouts

Winner – Heart of Wales Welsh Black

Runner Up – Otley Dark O

Old Ales

Great Welsh Beer & Cider Festival - first day

Well today has been a fantastic day for all who attended Wales' biggest pub, the beers were on top form, the ciders were excellent and we even had complements about the food - we did listen to the complaints in the past years and we did something better.
Over 130 gallons of cider were sold today and we can still put the same range on for tomorrow - this year we are ordered enough to put on a full range.
I managed to try a few beers today - Monty's Sunshine was a recommendation from Twitter and I did enjoy that - just goes to show that I do listen to the public.

Setup Day 3

Another busy day in the office and around the site with plenty of phone calls from brewers, producers and the general public. No we are not doing inflatable sumo wrestling was one answer someone had today!
The last beer delivery today was from Tom in Wales' smallest brewery, set in the basement of the Wheatsheaf, Llantrisant. I look forward to trying his stout.
The glasses have arrived and look good, thanks to Otley Brewery for being our sponsor for this year. Set to be another collectors item for years to come.

Day 2 Setup

Another day finished setting up at the Great Welsh with all the beers delivered and stillaged together with most of the cider and perry stored in our cool cellar. I did manage to try a few ciders today and some samples from SA Brain found their way into the organisers office and were much enjoyed by the staff. All in all a good setup, despite the breaking news that festival stalwart Buster Grant from Breconshire Brewery is going it alone by setting up his own brewery in Brecon!

Setup Day One- An Update

So we are nearing the end of the 1st day of setup and a lot of progress has been made, we have the stillage up and most of the ales racked and settling with the cider arriving in the morning.

Our on site press officer & photographer Jonas has been running round all day to bring you the latest photo's and tweets - you can follow the action live from @CardiffCAMRA on twitter where regular updates and photographs are published.

We're on site!

CAMRA members have arrived on site at the Motorpoint Arena, ready for the beers to be delivered at 1000am. Abusy week beckons for all!

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