Hawkshead Summer Beer Festival

Driving towards Windermere last Monday at the start of our summer Lakes holiday I noticed a sign advertising Hawksheads Summer beer festival. After excitedly checking my calendar I was very happy to realise that the festival was the following weekend.

As I've mentioned in previous blogs I'm a big fan of Hawksheads beers but our regular visits up here never seem to coincide with their festivals. A quick check of the beer list for the festival and I was even more excited, the list was a who's who of the best of the UK beer scene with only a few notable omissions (no Marble for example), there was however going to be beers from Thornbridge, Dark Star, Brewdog, Saltaire and Highland Brewing Co. amongst others.

After much pleading and bartering of family duties, I finally managed to get to the festival on Saturday afternoon ready to get stuck into some quality beers. Myself and roped in family friend Dan (a beer festival novice) headed over to Staveley around 4pm. Unfortunately on arrival I realised that Saturday afternoon was too late as many of the beers I'd been looking forward to had already run off.

The festival had been running since Thursday and I guess had been very popular everyday. This scenario is common of many beer festivals these days and obviously a sign of their growing popularity. I appreciate it must be difficult and this isn't a criticism aimed particularly at Hawkshead but I do wish festivals would plan to have enough beer for the Saturday night which traditionally is when the main entertainment is planned and should be there busiest night.

To be honest I was half expecting this to be the case as its the same at a lot of the other festivals I've been to recently, unfortunately I wasn't able to get there any earlier on this occasion.

Luckily there was still a number of beers available including one of my favourite beers Thornbridge Kipling and a full compliment of Hawksheads range: Lakeland Gold, Red, Bitter, Brodies Prime, Organic Stout and Damson Porter. We also tried tasty beers from RCH, Greenmill and Purity Brewing. To be honest I could quite happily spend all my Saturday nights at Hawksheads beer hall regardless of there being a beer festival, so I wasn't too upset.

I also remembered that Matt Clarke, Hawkshead brewer had told me to come and say hello if I made it to the festival. A member of staff located Matt; and after brief introductions Dan and I were soon being treated to a behind the scenes tour of the Hawkshead operation. These are exciting times for Hawkshead, since there beginnings in 2002 they've expanded rapidly and are currently in the process of creating a new modern visitor centre/bar in adjoining buildings at the Mill Yard Staveley.

The brewery currently a 30 bbl set up was full of beautiful sparkling German stainless steel vessels, including some large new fermenters waiting to be enclosed behind glass in the new brewery tap. I'm sure I'm not alone in loving being shown round breweries, Its great to see behind the scenes especially when the brewery in question is one of your favourites.

Inevitably there is also usually some special or at least very fresh beer involved in brewery tours and at this point we were treated to a taste of a special one-off brew that Matt has devised which was just in the process of conditioning. Matt (like Kelly Ryan of Thornbridge) is from New Zealand originally and the beer: "Captain Cooker Manuka Beer" is infused with the leaf of New Zealand's, Manuka plant giving it a slightly perfumed, sweet, spicy, tea like quality. it tasted great, experimentation with ingredients like this is to be encouraged as far as I'm concerned and I'm hoping to be able to try this beer again somewhere soon.

We also checked out some fermenting Hawkshead Red, discussed the planned new developments and beer in general. After shoving my head inside a bag of Citra hops (like a demented dope fiend), we returned upstairs to the beer hall to be met by Dave and Anne and friends from Hardknott Brewery and enjoyed another couple of pints and some friendly conversation before arranging our taxi home.

After my initial disappointment at missing out on many of the beers at the festival, I'd come away having had a really enjoyable few hours and I've made a promise to myself note to visit the festival earlier next time. If you're in the area you really should check out the Hawkshead beer hall and its excellent beers, if you've never tried them you really should. Hawkshead are to my mind masters of flavour and consistency. The new brewery tap looks like its going to be very impressive indeed (unfortunately I was enjoying myself so much I didn't take any pictures).

The epilogue to this blog is the great news that we will shortly be listing Hawkshead's bottled beers on myBrewerytap, with any luck we'll get the bottles into our 52 week beer club and mixed cases soon as well.