Beer & Dub Kombination in God’s Own County

When we went to the Northern Chapter Meet in Appletreewick in May, we found out that there was a Beer Festival held in October at the nearby Craven Arms pub. Our friends Tony & Penny (Lilyvdub) were already going, so we thought we’d tag along as well. Others got involved, so we’d planned that there would be 4 Brazibay members, with Geoff & Dave (Dalesman) and Tony & Liz (Roobarb) also coming. In addition, Liz’s sister Soo and her boyfriend, Gavin would be camping on the site (Masons).

In the event, due to family circumstances, Tony & Liz were unable to join us – maybe next year guys…

We arrived around 4pm and attempted to put the canopy up in wind and rain. As Alison and I got closer and closer to falling out over it, we thought it best to do without, so stuffed it into the small event tent we’d taken for storing chairs, etc in. Given the weather there weren’t too many opportunities to sit out anyway!

We went up to the pub about 6 and managed to get a table upstairs in the Cruck barn building where the Beer Festival Bar was housed. It’s a great venue although it was flippin hot up there. We’d taken Boris so it was good to be able to tuck him out of the way under the table. I’ve never seen so many dogs on any campsite and it seemed that most of them were in the pub as well.

We bought our programmes and tokens and were enjoying our first drinks when Geoff & Dave came to join us.

The theme of the event was the War of the Roses with breweries from both sides of the Pennines represented. They even had some Silver Tally from our local brewery, Prospect, based in Standish, just outside Wigan.

The pub was serving snacks throughout the evening and we had a very acceptable steak pie, peas and chips, which helped to soak up some of the beer.

Tony and Penny arrived about 8.30 so that meant we had to stay for more beer (shame!) – a great evening and a cracking start to the weekend.

Geoff managed to capture Tony & Penny, downstairs in the bar

Back to the van and we settled down for the night although it was very windy and rainy which kept me awake for a while.

Saturday started quite dull as well and we had a lie in until after 9.30 (lazy devils), but, after breakfast, we set off with Boz to walk along the river to Burnsall. This is a lovely stroll and we decided to have a coffee in one of the tea shops in the village. The Thwaites dray horses were due to make an appearance at the Craven Arms about 1.30pm and I fancied getting some pics but as we were walking to Burnsall we saw and heard them heading along the road. We got ahead of them and took some pics as they crossed the bridge and then outside the Red Lion.

The two horses are called Wainwright and Bomber (both names of Thwaites’ ales) and they looked magnificent.

After a coffee and a chat to a couple with a massive motorhome, we walked back to the site. The horses also headed back and then to our delight did a lap of the campsite before moving on to the Craven Arms.

Photo courtesy of prize winning photographer, Geoff Dixon (that’s his van, Priscilla, in the background)

Whilst Geoff, Tony & Penny, went up to the Craven Arms for a view of the horses, we had some food before joining them for an afternoon/evening session.

Beef Madras

We’d got a great seat in the pub, which, again, had more than enough dogs… The afternoon centered around drinking, giggling and more drinking. I think we managed to try all but two of the beers and the girls moved on to Yorkshire Lager which seemed to be working it’s magic.

Another photo from Geoff’s collection

Full of ale, we wandered back to the vans, having placed our votes for the top ales. The winner, apparently, was Bowland Gold. Yorkshire’s breweries won by 91 votes to 51, but I guess that’s what happens if you hold the event in God’s Own County!

Sunday morning was about packing up and heading off, but not before Soo and Gavin popped over to introduce themselves – they’d had a great time and hopefully they’ll be back next year.

Boris waiting for the rain to clear on Sunday morning

There are more photos (including some I’ve borrowed from Geoff) here: Flickr