Hucknall beer festival back with the sweet taste of success

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After two years of waiting, the Hucknall Beer Festival returned in triumph.

Thanks to Covid and lockdowns, the festival, organised by the Nottingham Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has been mothballed since 2021 with attempts to stage it last summer thwarted by the warm weather affecting the beer.

But last weekend it was back in its usual February slot and at its usual home at the John Godber Centre and the crowds came flooding back to enjoy more than 100 real ales and ciders and live music.

Andrew Ludlow, a Hucknall resident and secretary of Nottingham CAMRA, said: “After about an hour on the first day, I said to Kim Pears, the manager at the John Godber Centre, ‘isn’t it great to be back and it feels like we’ve never been away’.

The festival attracted big crowds throughout the weekend

"All through the festival, people kept coming up to us and saying ‘we’re so glad you’re back’ and it’s great to get that sort of feedback, it tells you you’re doing something right.

"In the end we had 89 beers and 12 ciders so we achieved our aim of having more than 100.

Put your pooch on a pint in Hucknall

"We actually ran out of cider on the Friday night but Mr Blockley (Ray Blockley of Torkard Cider in Hucknall) knows how to magic up some more so he went out for fresh supplies on Saturday and came back on Saturday night with more supplies for Sunday too.”

Beer and cider fans welcomed back the festival after two years away

The festival also saw the staging of the Spyke Golding Challenge Shield to find the best new beer brewed for – and judged at – the festival by a Nottinghamshire brewery.

Ten breweries to submitted a brand new beer, which the public sampled and scored in various categories with the highest overall total being the winner.

Andrew continued: “The winner was Magpie Brewery with their beer All Vanilla, No Filler, a 7.3 per cent stout which was incredibly successful because we had about 40 people put judging forms in, which I thought was incredibly good, and the average score was about 9.3 out of 10 which is phenomenal.

"Because the festival beers were so well received, we decided to awarded highly commended awards to any beers that averaged scores over eight, which again is tremendous, so Castle Rock, Totally Brewed and Hucknall’s own Lincoln Green all got those.”