From around 100 real ales, there are two previous winners of the Beer of the Festival – Hopshackle Historic Porter and Milton Marcus Aurelius – and there are beers from the five Cambridgeshire breweries, all brewing within 10 miles of the festival:

Blackbar – Cambridgeshire’s newest brewery, established in 2011, got it’s first beer out just in time for the fest. Based in Harston, about 5 miles south of Cambridge.
Cambridge Moonshine – three times winner of the Cambridge Beer Festival. Established in 2004 and now based about 5 miles SE of Cambridge.
Fellows – established in 2009 in Cottenham, about 7 miles north of Cambridge
Lord Conrads – established in 2007 and now based in Dry Drayton, about 6 miles west of Cambridge.
Milton – as mentioned, Beer of the Fest winner in 2007 with Marcus Aurelius which makes another appearance this year, and winner in 2002 and 2001 with Caligula and Colossus. Founded in 1999 and the closest brewery to the Winter Ale fest, based 4 miles NE of Cambridge.

This year there are three draught foreign beers for the first time at the Winter Ale Fest – De Molen Geboren & Getogen was put on Friday evening, and will be followed by two beers from the fantastic Rogue brewery based about 5,000 miles from Cambridge – Chatoe OREgasmic 7.0% American pale ale and Dad’s Little Helper 6.8% Black IPA.

There are also several real ciders, including the aptly named:

The fest is held at the University Social Club, Mill Lane, next to the Mill Pond.

Previous winners of the beer of the festival

Nearly 40 years later, only two of those remain open as pubs – the Cricketer’s (now First and Last) and Elm Tree. The Elm Tree is the only one to have kept it’s name and the only one to also be listed in the 2011 Good Beer Guide.

Ancient Druids – demolished in 1982 to make way for the Grafton shopping centre development. A new pub of that name was built on nearby Napier Street and brewed its own beer for a while, but after refurbishments as the Box Tree and Bar Citrus it closed and is now the Tang Chinese restaurant.
Bun Shop – demolished in the 1970s, the pub once stood on what is now Downing Street, roughly where the back of John Lewis is, but was cleared sometime around the development of the Lion Yard shopping centre. The license was transferred to King Street in the early 80s, but last year that pub was renamed the Jolly Scholar.
Cambridge Arms – closed, now d’Arrys restaurant and bar, but not a pub. The Cambridge Arms suffered various refurbishments in the 1990s, renamed as the Brewery and the Rattle and Hum, throwing out the breweriana and traces of it being the former site of the Cambridge Brewery.
Cricketer’s Arms – open but name recently changed to the First and Last, the original but short-lived name of the pub. Cricketers, First and Last
Elm Tree – open and the only Cambridge pub in the 1974 beer guide to retain its name. Little seems to have changed since then; the dart board, bar billiards and fish tank have long gone, but the pub is atmospheric and full of character, one of the best in Cambridge especially for real ale and Belgian bottled beer.
Mill – closed towards the end of 2011 but at the time of writing is on the market as a free of tie lease.

The custom on Straw Bear Tuesday was for one of the confraternity of the Plough to dress up with straw one of their number as a bear and call him the Straw Bear. He was then taken round the village to entertain by his frantic and clumsy gestures the good folk who had on the previous day subscribed to the rustics’ spread of beer, tobacco and beef at which the bear presided. (Cambridgeshire Customs and Folklore, Enid Porter)

The custom died out soon after 1909 but was revived in 1980. The day begins with a procession of Morris and Molly dancers following the bear to the Market Place. After this, dancing and folk music breaks out across most of the 10 or so pubs throughout the day while a smaller procession keeps up with the bear.

3 Special beers are brewed for the occasion:
Elgoods Straw Beer – a pleasant enough 4% bitter with a taste of honey, Oakham Straw Bear – a crisp, hoppy 4.4% pale ale and, best of all I think, Tydd Steam Beartown – a 4.5% best bitter that’s a slightly richer, maltier beer with a bit of warming orange that offers some protection from the fenland frost.

There are several good pubs in Whittlesey, most of which have a beer festival on the day. Among them is the Letter B, the 2012 Peterborough CAMRA Pub of the Year, a fantastic boozer with the best range of beers including Digfield Mad Monk, a premium bitter that was a welcome winter warmer, and a special from Oakham to mark the best pub award.

Just down the road is the Hero of Aliwal, a free house that perhaps had the least exiting beer festival (3 of the casks were Greene King) but did have the new Oakham Preacher, a bit sweeter than their usual beers but otherwise a nice typical hoppy Oakham.

Across the Briggate River/Kings Dyke is the Boat Inn, a pub since at least 1839, its believed part of the building may be 11th century, the exposed brickwork at the back certainly looks much older. At the rear is a patio beer garden and an area for Petanque. The straw Bear appeared and danced there for a while, then we followed the procession to the Falcon, an early 18th century inn which also had a beer fest outside at the back.

The procession ends at the Market Square outside the George Hotel, late 18th century, superbly renovated and reopened in 2010 as a Wetherspoons pub. It was sad to see such a prominent building boarded up in previous years so is good to have it open again these past couple of years. As well as the Elgoods and Oakham festival beers, Grainstore Cooking and Batemans XXXB were on.

Also on Market Square is Hubs Place, a bar with a beer festival in the courtyard at the back with beers from Elgoods, Everards, Oakham and Woodfordes.

Further along the Market Street stands the Black Bull, a 17th century inn with low beamed ceilings, a pub always heaving during the Straw Bear fest, and north of that is the late 18th century New Crown, a thatched pub that’s a gathering place for the music and dancing. Elgoods Straw Beer was on at both.

We ended up at the Bricklayers Arms drinking a Tydd Steam Cunning Linctus when Old Glory, the most menacing and solemn of the Molly troupes, barged into the pub and roughly caroused around. There’s something about Old Glory that seems to capture the essence of Straw Bear Festival, harking back to a time when agricultural workers used dancing as a means to get money during the lean, hard winter months, and whose dancing I imagine would have been rougher than the ribbons and hankies of the morris dancers seen nowadays.

Map from Straw Bear website:

There is a Straw Bear pub built in 1975 and named by residents a few years before the revival. I’ve yet to visit that, the Ram Inn or the Railway Inn…

Best UK Draught (Cask or Keg) Beer
Winner: Grain Brewery Redwood – an absolutely outstanding beer, instantly one of the best beers I’ve ever had the pleasure of drinking
Runner-up: Tintagel Harbour Special – first enjoyed this at the King Arthur’s Arms in Tintagel and it was then my favourite at the Peterborough Beer Fest

Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer
Winner: Sharps Special – In a word, perfect
Runners-up: Magic Rock Dark Arts – wonderful stout and I think their best beer, St Peter’s Red – session beer of choice

Best Overseas Draught Beer
Having not been overseas in 2011, it would have to be the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale over here on draught at the Cambridge Blue, or the Fort George Cavatica Stout at GBBF

Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer
Winner: Rochefort Trappistes 8 – may have opened up a new world (well, country) of beer for me…

Best Overall Beer
Grain Brewery Redwood

Best Pumpclip or Label
Every one from Watermill Inn

Best UK Brewery
Grain Brewery – Impressive range of beers now – especially Redwood, of course, and the Blackwood Stout

Best Overseas Brewery
Deschutes

Pub/Bar of the Year
The Shed, Wroxham – A converted boat shed, hidden away and hard to find – but what a discovery. 50 Real ales and a great atmosphere. It was here I first discovered Grain Redwood.

Beer Festival of the Year
Winner: Green Man, Grantchester – fantastic choice of beers for a pub holding it’s first beer festivals this year
Runner-up: Bury Beerhouse festival – great selection of beers, best of which was their own Brewshed Brewery Rioja Porter

Supermarket of the Year
Waitrose – because now I’m only a minute away from a bottle of Skinner’s, St Peter’s, Fuller’s etc

Independent Retailer of the Year
Bacchanalia, Cambridge

Online Retailer of the Year
Ales By Mail
Honourable mention: Driftwood Spars for not only delivering great beer but putting a smile on my face with their customer service – cheers

Best Beer Book or Magazine
Well, I got ’1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die’ for christmas, so that.

Best Beer Blog or Website
Hard to pick a winner from:
Boak & Bailey – always thought-provoking and honest, the one I read most often
A Good Beer Blog – Alan McLeod’s 2,500th blog post earlier this month is an inspiring achievement
Tandleman – essential reading, not just for the blog posts but for the comments they encourage

Best Beer Twitterer
Too many, but this tweet

Best Online Brewery presence
Leeds Brewery – love the presentation of Leeds Brewery beers

Food and Beer Pairing of the Year
Any beer with chips

In 2012 I’d Most Like To…
Return to the West Coast USA. Failing that, find a regular supply of Deschutes over here. Or else make a Deschutes homebrew

Open Category: Fondest farewells
St Austell Tinners – replaced by Trelawny
Oakham White Dwarf – replaced with Scarlet Macaw
Buntingford Silent Night – quite possibly the last year…

Grain Redwood at Wroxham Shed - Beer of the Year in Bar of the Year

St Austell Tinners

Few will mourn the passing of Tinners. It was a copper coloured bitter of 3.7% that was a bit biscuity, a bit nutty, a bit unexciting. But I have fond memories of Tinners from holidays in Cornwall. Around ten years ago it was available in cans and I once bought some from a shop in Tintagel to take on a picnic. We took a disposable barbecue out onto the cliffs overlooking Bossiney Cove and barbecued some peppers, onions and courgettes, washed down with cans of Tinners. You wouldn’t call that ‘gourmet’ food or Tinners ‘fine’ ale, but at that moment in that setting, they were perfect.

Tinners has been replaced with Trelawny a beer brewed with Galaxy hops. St Austell brew some of my favourite beers – Proper Job, Proper Black, Admirals, HSD – but I don’t suppose I’ll ever warm to Trelawny, I’ll always see it as the beer that prompted the end of Tinners.

Buntingford Silent Night

If my fond memories of Tinners are largely to do with the setting, then Buntingford’s Silent Night must be down to the season, for the recipe changed each year. It was a beer brewed each Christmas with a festive label that was “the only truly traditional seasonal aspect of the beer. Everything else is just a cynical ploy to cash in on the festive season”. So no festive spices then, but a surprisingly hoppy and absolutely delicious beer. It must have been 7 or 8 years ago that I first encountered the beer which at the time was available in bottles from Cambridge Wine Merchants. We bought several bottles and I recall when we went to replenish supplies, having an enthusiastic conversation about the beer with the assistant who was also keen to acquire more stock. Alas, it wasn’t bottled again and I didn’t encounter the beer on draught again for years until earlier this month in the Empress in Cambridge. According to Buntingford, it’s ‘quite possibly the last year we’ll be doing it, as we are bored with the idea now’.

Oakham White Dwarf

This pale yellow beer (originally a wheat beer) was regularly seen at festivals around here – I definitely had this several times at Cambridge’s Strawberry Fair and the festivals on Parker’s Piece over the years. It was a very likeable, refreshing beer and at 4.3% was a good summer session beer. Oakham replaced it this year with Scarlet Macaw, another good Oakham ale, but for me a little too sharp to be as quaffable as White Dwarf.

It’s just possible these beers may be brewed again at some point in the future…

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp!
and surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

At last, a Christmas Beer that delivers the pudding.

The bottles in this Christmas Beers Countdown have all had Christmassy labels but few have had Christmassy beer. This beer has both and it’s no coincidence it’s the last beer of the countdown – I saved a bottle from last year. It was the best Christmass Beer then and it’s the best now.

Last year I said it tasted spicy and the brewer commented:

There are no spices of any kind in Christmas Crack. Just late hopping goodness.

I’m told Amarillo hops are used in this beer, which could be what gives it the spiciness. I expected that over the year the hops would have mellowed, but they seem more evident than I remember, a definite hoppy tang to the finish of what is overall a strong, malty beer with some fruit cake and a hint of orange. That said, I was pairing it with a Heston Blumenthal Hidden Clementine Christmas pudding.

I’ve yet to try the 2011 version, which I think is brewed to the same recipe, but I have a bottle in the cupboard. I also have another of those puddings to pair it with…

Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night.

This beer’s chief weapon is apricots… apricots and pears… pears and apricots… It’s two chief weapons are pears and apricots…

That’s all I can muster after a day of last minute Christmas Shopping.

Because I haven’t even started wrapping yet.

First beer I’ve tried from Naylor’s Brewery and a good one, described as

A premium strength dark brown-coloured beer with subtle hop flavours and strong roast barley maltiness

A nice dark bitter, hoppier than ‘subtle’ would suggest but well balanced with the roasty, liquorice flavours.

I like the label and I’ve seen the same santa appear on the pump clip for Tydd Steam Yooligan and a Christmas Card.

I could drink this anytime, it didn’t seem particularly Christmassy in flavour, but it is a Christmas Beer.

It’s a pleasant surprise to find this Goose Island Christmas Ale is so easy drinking after yesterday’s overwhelmingly sweet, syrupy Delirium Christmas beer.

It’s a 6.2% American Brown Ale that tastes predominantly of toffee malts, with a creamy consistency and overall quite a mellow flavour, the hints of orange and cinnamon I think coming from the hops rather than any added spices.

I like this beer and it went too quickly. In that sense too it is a Christmas Beer.

This isn’t the taste of Christmas, it’s the taste of late summer, as experienced by a mob of intemperate wasps gorging on windfallen fermenting pears, nectar drunk.

It’s sweet and sticky with pears, candied peaches and cherries, dusted with nutmeg and boozy – each mouthful seems to have a noticeable effect.

This should be either the only or last drink of an evening and that’s where I went wrong. I had a thirst and this wasn’t the beer to quench it; it’s a dessert beer, one for sipping and sharing, not for quaffing. A decent beer then, deep and varied flavours, more of a warmer than some previous Christmas Beers, one that deserved more attention and patience than I gave it, but too sweet for me to try again.