Festival News:

10th Croydon & Sutton Festival:

Wallington Festival 2003 sells out again!

Croydon & Sutton CAMRA's popular Real Ale Festival which was held at the Wallington Hall from 9th to 11th October, was yet again a great success with a complete sell out of all beer and cider (apart from a few gallons which was consumed at the end by thirsty workers taking down the festival)!

Admissions were up on Thursday by 25% which lead to a massive increase in beer consumption and a "re-order" was needed on Friday morning (a first for this festival).

East West Ales jumped into the breach to help us out of this potentially serious situation, supplying beer by 1pm, most of which was ready to drink by 7pm that evening.

We apologize most profusely to those people who thought the beer range was too low on Friday but the great increase in attendance this year after a slow build up over the last 10 years was impossible to predict.
However, at no time until Saturday afternoon did the number of beers on sale actually fall below 30, it actually increased after 6pm on Friday to 40 beers.

Many thanks to all of you who came and drank the beer and cider and made the festival such a success - please come again next year - same time, same place!

We are now working on plans to ensure that sufficient beer will be ordered to avoid the problems caused this year by our success!

Over 7000 pints of some 50+ ales - mainly from Southern England and East Anglai but with some old favourites from other parts, were consumed by around 2000 thirsty drinkers!

They also got through some 260 pints of 5 traditional ciders and 2 perries, 40 different foreign beers and many different English bottle conditioned beers!

This year's festival was again sponsored by Fuller, Smith and Turner who supplied the London Porter, draught 1845 and, first time ever in cask - "Vintage Ale" as well as London Pride and Chiswick. They also sponsored the Festival Programme, enabling us to produce a much more attractive programme which, judging by the comments during the festival was well received. We are very grateful for their assistance to make this festival a great success.

10^th

CROYDON & SUTTON REAL ALE FESTIVAL

WALLINGTON HALL

Stafford Road, Wallington

Opposite Sainsbury’s

Less than 10 mins walk from Wallington Station

9^th – 11^th OCTOBER 2003

OVER 50 REAL ALES CIDER & PERRY BRITISH “REAL ALE IN A BOTTLE” FOREIGN BOTTLED BEERS HOT & COLD FOOD CAMRA PRODUCTS SOUVENIR GLASS DISABLED ACCESS / TOILETS

Fullers Head Brewer John Keeling will answer you brewing questions during Thursday lunchtime

OPENING TIMES & ADMISSION CHARGES

Thursday 9th11am – 5pm - FREE ADMISSION Thursday 9th 5pm – 10.30pm - £2.50 (Members £1.50) Friday 10th 11am – 5pm -FREE ADMISSION Friday 10th5pm – 10.30pm - £3.00 (Members £2.00) Saturday 11th11am – 6pm - FREE ADMISSION Last evening admission: 10pm - Right of Admission Reserved

CAMRA Members - Volunteers wanted to help at the festival.
On-line Staffing Form available here

For more information contact the staffing officer by clicking here

Click here for a provisional beer list

Wallington Festival 2002 sell out shock!

Croydon & Sutton CAMRA's popular Real Ale Festival which was held at the Wallington Hall from 10th to 12th October 2002, was a rip roaring success with a complete sell out of all beer and cider!

The draught beer ran out about 5pm but the foreign bottled beer (mainly Belgian) lasted until just before 6pm - our advertised closing time and the British Bottle Conditioned beer just managed to last out the distance!

Many thanks to all of you who came and drank the beer and cider and made the festival such a success - please come again next year - same time, same place!

Please be assured - more beer will be ordered next year to ensure that there will be a good range up till closing time on the Saturday!

Over 6000 pints of some 50+ ales - mainly from Southern England but with some old favourites from other parts, were consumed by around 1500 thirsty drinkers!

They also got through some 260 pints of 5 traditional ciders and 2 perries, 26 different foreign beers and 17 different English bottle conditioned beers!

This year's festival was sponsored by Fuller, Smith and Turner who supplied the Festival glasses and draught 1845 as well as London Pride and Honeydew and we are very grateful for their assistance to make this festival a great success (see News item for result of Beer of the Festival).

Below, we show some photos we took at the festival - to remind you of the good time you had at Wallington Hall if you came - or see what you missed if you didn't and perhaps persuade you to come next year!

Please support the festival again next year - it's a great little festival, cosy but not crowded with a great range of beer and staff and customers have great fun! CAMRA members - we always need people to staff the festival - not just to sell beer, there are many other jobs and experience is not needed, just enthusiasm! It's hard work but we have lots of fun while we're doing it and there is a chance for a few drinks on us as well! So, look out for the details of next year's festival and remember to sign up to work! This year's festival was organised by Steve Collins, who finally got fed up with being beer manager for the last 8 years - that's him in the photo below! As well as all the alcohol, we also sell CAMRA products such as Good Beer Guides, local real ale guides, T Shirts etc. which prove very popular with the customers.

View of the main stillage Fuller's Director of Brewing, John Keeling, instructs customers on how to taste Vintage Ale! The festival organiser, Steve Collins, pulls a pint of London Pride! Who said they didn't see him doing anything? Mike Jacomb mans the Cider & Perry Bar! Pat Hewitt on the CAMRA Products stand