Real fail? Beer festival closes early

Warwick University’s 32nd annual Real Ale Festival ran out of provisions so rapidly this year that it was forced to close its doors a day early and forgo its closing night.

The event normally caters for about 3,000 attendees over three days and last year ran out of everything on the last night of the festival. To counter this, even more beer was brought in than ever – over 100 different beers, ciders, fruit wines and perries – but to no avail.

In comparison with 2010’s opening night with an attendance of 500 and 1,000 on the second night, over 1,100 people turned up to each night this year. Real Ale Society’s President Jamie Dennis described attendance levels as “tricky to predict” with so much variability across each night.

“It is obviously unfortunate that we had to cancel the final night of the festival, but that just goes to show how popular the event was and what a success it was this year,” commented Dennis. “Everyone seemed to drink a lot more than at past festivals. It was not so much the numbers that caused of the selling out but the amount that each person drank.”

More beer was acquired on the Friday. Seven casks and as much wine and cider as suppliers had in stock were purchased personally by Dennis from all over Warwickshire, the difficulty being that real ales need to be racked and left to settle to be drinkable. Only a few small breweries sell beers that do not require this and can be bought at such short notice. However, this was thought to be enough to cover the remaining two nights.

“[Closing on the Saturday was not anticipated] until we realised that the beer was being drunk at an even faster rate on the Friday than it had done on the Thursday,” he said.

The society was left with the decision of whether to close early and have a very short running period on the Saturday or let the Friday night run through to its full potential; the latter of which they decided was the better option, and so stayed open an extra hour on Friday until 1am.

One Thursday night server, first-year MORSE student Dom Huntley, commented on the effectiveness of the advertising campaign: “People were very aware it was going on. The prices were also good. There were a number of people from outside of the University as well, to add to the numbers.”

Fourth-year Chemistry student Alex Houghton, told the Boar: “I feel that, overall, the event was a huge success for both the Real Ale Society and the Students’ Union. It had such a nice, relaxed and sociable atmosphere. The entertainment was great, the food was delicious and, most of all, the beer was fantastic. I was greatly disappointed that it wasn’t on for a third day and would certainly have no objection to several Real Ale Festivals being held each year.”

The festival began in 1979 and is both the longest-running annual on-campus society event and the largest student-run beer festival in the UK.

Thursday night featured Britain’s last traditional Victorian pub pianist, Dr Busker, and a pirate fancy dress competition, whilst Warwick University Wind Orchestra performed on the Friday. Warwick Folk and Tom Lane’s Red Hot Chillies were set to perform on the Saturday, but were unable to do so due to the closure.

“It is perhaps a little annoying,” said David Garman, Secretary of Warwick Folk Society, “[but] we do not blame the Real Ale Society for the cancellation. They have been planning it for almost a year so you can’t really accuse them of lack of planning, and there is no way they could have known that they would get more people in two nights this year than they did last year in three. They have treated us well and we enjoyed performing last year, so we will definitely play again … if asked.”

Two alterations to this year’s festival were the dates of the festival and the addition of the hog roast. However, the point was raised that no vegetarian option was offered despite Students’ Union regulations which state that one should be available.

When asked about this issue, Dennis replied that “[we] were not aware of the Union regulations regarding vegetarian options, nor were we made aware of them by the Union.” He mentioned that, although there has never been a vegetarian option at a Real Ale Festival, it would be something they would look into next year.

“The general consensus so far has been that the event was a complete success, a victim of its own success,” Dennis continued. “Past society members and Union staff have deemed it the most successful and profitable festival ever. The event selling out in such a manner is not something we could have predicted, nor something we have ever had to plan for in the 32 years of it running.”

The Real Ale Society offered “sincere apologies to those that had made special plans to come on the Saturday night”, adding that the profits from this year’s festival will go towards covering venue hire fees next year and investing in equipment to run an even larger festival next year.