Wetherspoon’s Green Ayre pub in Lancaster, venue for the groundbreaking HOWZAT! cricket and beer festival, raised over £300 in ten days for the childhood cancer charity CLIC, as well as selling (and almost running out of) lots of real ale. And they hope to add to this total when a shirt signed by Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff is auctioned on EBay.
Manager Jill Hollingsworth told CAMRA: “We had some great beers on, some of which we’d never come across before, so it gave our regular ale drinkers lots to talk about. On the negative side we underestimated just how popular they would be and were down to just two by Saturday afternoon. However, everyone rallied round and we got some new beers on by Sunday morning. Shepherd Neame Spitfire and Brains Rev James will be available for the next few days."
The festival was well-organised, with useful tasting notes and eye-catching promotional displays. (See attached pictures.) The event was very much a joint effort, with much hard work from the management team, in particular Stuart Blackburn, Ben Tate, Anthony Kitchen, Jill Hollingsworth and Sarah Parkinson. Everyone is now looking forward to the Wetherspoon national festival in October.