St Neots Beer Festival - Booze on the Ouse

Today I took a trip to St Neots by train to visit the first day of the St Neots Beer Festival, aka the 'Booze on the Ouse'

This is the description on the website.

It was a 1 3/4 mile train ride each way, going via Peterborough, so that in itself was interesting. I saw plenty of flooding! Here are a few photos.

Going through Ely on the train.

This is the flooding by the railway we saw on our U3A Ely Walk last week.

And this is the animal feed factory we passed on that walk.

There was massive flooding here,

The river in Peterborough.

St Neots station is about 1 1/2 miles from the Priory Centre where the Beer Festival was being held. A decent brisk walk.

This is the River Great Ouse  as I approached the Priory Centre.

It is opposite this bell foundry.

I arrived at the venue at about 12:45 pm. I was amazed to see almost all of the seating was already occupied, but I found myself somewhere to sit.

Here is the main stillage. A great selection of beers.

As when I went to Colchester last month (see here) the Cheese and Pie Man was providing, er,.. cheese and pies.

I had myself one of their tasty pasties for my lunch as you can see at the picture at the top of the post.

There was also seating outside, but it was  a little cold for sitting.

After a while the CAMRA devotees who had come to the start thinned out and there was more space. But then I was joined at my table in the middle of the hall by this young man. A research biologist working remotely this was him working from home... at a beer festival! I was impressed with his power of concentration as he tapped away on his laptop amid the hubbub around him.

I left in good time to catch my train home and had a little wander through the town centre. Here is the town sign,

And this is the view from St Neots bridge across the Great Ouse. Full, but not quite overflowing.

As for the beers... Before I left home I printed out the full programme of beers, ciders and gins (from here) As you can see from the picture at the top of this post, I used it during the afternoon to select my beers before going to the bar. Nearly all the beers were on, but there were a couple that weren't yet ready or being held back. Over a little over 3 hours, drinking 1/2 pint of each, I sampled the following:

1. Roughacre Zestival 3.6% (Session Pale Ale)

2. Digfield Fools Nook 3.8% (Session Golden Ale)

3. Grain Okapi 4.5% (Premium Pale Ale)

4. Nene Valley Simple Pleasures 3.6% (Session Golden Ale)

5. Three Blind Mice Lonely Snake 3.5% (Session Golden Ale)

6. Elmtree Burston's Cuckoo 3.8% (Session Blonde Ale)

7. Panther Beast of the East 5.5% (New World IPA)

8. Rocket Ales Sidewinder 3.9% (Session Pale Ale)

9. Fat Cat Wildcat IPA 6.0% (British IPA)

As you can see I had almost entirely blonde, pale or golden ales, which seems to be the current fashion, and most of them below 4% alcohol. The Zestival was my favourite but I rather liked the Okapi, Simple pleasures and Sidewinder too.

A lovely day out with some great beers and I had to keep myself awake on the train so as not to miss my stop at Bury St. Edmunds.