Ale as old as time: Warwick’s Real Ale Festival returns for its 45th year

Abigail
Warwick Real Ale Society’s annual Real Ale Festival arrived in the Copper Rooms for its 45th year. Declared as the biggest student-run beer festival in Europe, the wide variety of beers, ciders, wines, and mead are enough to entice Warwick’s student population and locals alike. A trip to the Real Ale Festival is a highlight of the University of Warwick calendar, so let’s see what Warwick’s answer to Oktoberfest had to offer.

For the opening Thursday night of the festival, I (Abigail) saw myself dabbling in the world of serving. Importantly, the Real Ale Festival is staffed solely with volunteer students, with a six-hour shift at the festival earning you a striped Real Ale branded rugby shirt and a preview of all the drinks on offer. Based on the front bar, which sports an array of dark ales, porters, and stouts, I had a front-row ticket to the incredible concert performed by Band Society’s most promising new bands. The live music aspect is a true draw of the festival, with many punters coming along to support their friends, beverages in hand. Whilst my hearing was struggling the morning after, Band Society put on a legendary performance.

For those daring enough to try the infamous Turbo Purple, the wine and mead bar is the place for you

The Real Ale Festival relies primarily on the generous donations of its local sponsors. From their flagship sponsor and Coventry-based brewery, Dhillon’s Brewery, to cider sponsor Lilley’s Cider, the opportunity to try unique flavoured alcohols at an affordable price is one of the highlights. After spending a long time testing arguably too many ciders, I have to admit there is a drink for everyone’s taste.

For those daring enough to try the infamous Turbo Purple, the wine and mead bar is the place for you. A brewing concoction close to the Warwick community’s hearts, Turbo Purple uses equal parts of strong ale, Gladiator cider, and Blackberry wine to create a less foamy version of your classic circling beverage. If a more classier drink is more your scene, there are a multitude of fruit wines and meads to try. Keep in mind that a standard mead contains a staggering 7-14% alcohol content – from personal experience, you have been warned.

Nikolai
Unlike Abigail, I didn’t do any serving at Real Ale Fest this year, but I did do a lot of tasting, that’s for sure. Alternating between the ale stands, cider bar, and the wine and mead bar, I tried no less than 11 alcoholic beverages across my two outings to the Copper Rooms.

I began Friday evening with the intriguingly named ‘Othello’ red ale, marketed as a ‘pint-sized tragedy’ (even if I was only drinking halves). I didn’t quite grasp the Othello link there; I can only think that the answer lies in the brewery’s name: Shakespeare Brewing Co. I then sidled upstairs, looking to push this heavy ale down with some cider. I ended up trying some Biscoff cider, which was just as sickly as you’d imagine, yet lovely all the same.

It’s been an experience which you can’t really get anywhere else on campus

Martin Day, News Editor at The Boar 

Back down in Copper Rooms 1, I then found The Boar’s very own News Editor Martin Day serving at the Keg Bar on the back wall, and fishing for a recommendation, I was pointed to the apparently popular ‘Underground Medicine’ pale ale. A perfectly fine beer, although its medicinal qualities were slightly lost on me.

Speaking to a mid-shift Martin, he told me what it was like to swap the journalist’s pen for the beer keg. “It’s been an experience which you can’t really get anywhere else on campus, I think. You know, events like this don’t happen all year round. It’s a great opportunity to just be able to experience what it’s like to bartend, without any of the stakes of bartending. The monetary system is literally just ticking off coins – it’s so easy and very simple to grasp too.

“It’s great to just interact because it’s not just the Warwick community; some of the people working on the bar tonight are from Coventry University, and we have alumni of this society who have been here for about 40 years, so I think it’s really quite a unique society event. I really like that.”

Leaving Martin to his job, I found myself ordering some ginger mead from the wine and mead bar, which Abigail has already told you is surprisingly strong. My review of the mead? Two big thumbs up. I felt very cool sipping away at this medieval-sounding beverage like a character from a fantasy novel. A friend of mine tried the garden mead, which sounds even more charmingly pagan.

Spotting the Student Union President Enaya Nihal through the crowd of ale-drinkers, I asked for some quick thoughts on the festival. “I just wanted to say,” said Enaya, “that Real Ale, I think, is an incredible initiative, and the way they’ve conducted it year after year after year, with so much organisation, so much thought and hard work put into it, I think is an incredible feat. You can really tell the students appreciate the hard work that’s been put into it.

“I also must give a shout-out to the bands. So Big Band tonight has been incredible, and it’s just a really lively atmosphere. I think it’s a great way to showcase what students can do when they have the time and to recreate POP! playlists when they can, including ‘Angels’, which is repeated very often. Also, [I] love to see that every student can serve, and I saw The Boar [serving] tonight and last night. But yeah, very cool overall.”

I then finished up my Friday with some ‘Plum Porter’, the deep fruitiness of which was a perfectly agreeable note to end on.

Back for more on Saturday – and ready to use up my remaining tokens – I began with a Ghostbusters-themed porter called ‘Stay Puft’. To my delight, it actually tasted like marshmallow, and I recommended it to everyone I saw from then on. A cider followed, this time elderflower, albeit one of those that just tastes like the juice of said fruit. Nevertheless, very tasty.

It all comes together, we’ve got hundreds of people enjoying themselves, getting a little drunk, and having a good time overall

Lewis Walker, Real Ale Society’s Secretary

My friend and I then opted for a bitter stout called ‘Black Adder’ – a most cunning beer indeed. Soon afterwards, I finally confronted the wines, choosing a blackberry wine. Sweet and rich, this was one of the highlights of the festival for me as a red wine-lover.

I also pulled Real Ale Society’s Secretary, Lewis Walker, over for a chat about the logistics of the whole affair. “Planning starts back in first term”, he told me. “We have to organise the venue with the SU, we have to start organising beer lists, getting servers interested. It’s a lot of work, a lot of different people doing a lot of different things. But as you’ve seen tonight, it all comes together, we’ve got hundreds of people enjoying themselves, getting a little drunk, and having a good time overall.”

Speaking on the importance of the festival, Lewis said: “I mean, we’re the biggest SU-run event of the year. I think it’s good to bring everyone together, we have music, we have beer. It’s a great social event, three days of the week, everyone has fun, more beers than you have really in your Varsity, Fusion, The [Dirty] Duck, T-bar, regular Copper Rooms. It induces people to try more things, we support charity, we support local breweries.” He finished by belting out the iconic festival-goer refrain of “Real Aleeeeeee”.

Enjoying some of the spectacular live music, I next tried the ‘Bubonic Orange’ stout from the stage-adjacent bar. Chocolate-orange flavoured, this one may have been a bit too ‘out there’, even for me. Regardless, I was happy to join in the ‘More Beer’ chant, set to the lyrics of ‘Swing Low’ and only featuring the lyrics, well… ‘More Beer’.

What better way to finish than with some Turbo Purple? Infinitely better-tasting than plain ol’ Purple, it’s just a shame that this is only rolled out once a year, rather than every bleeding Wednesday. I shall look forward to my next serving.