Kingston Arms Freehouse

Our Monthly Beer Festivals..

Best of the Fest Awards!

Beer Festival #4

From the following...

Robinsons of Stockport: Wags to Witches - £2.90 (4.0%)

Moorhouse’s of Lancashire: Pendle Witches Brew - £3.10 (5.1%)

Wychwood Brewery: Hobgoblin - £2.90 (4.5%)

Milestone: Wicked Witch - £2.90 (4.4%)

Oakham Ales: 3 Witches - £2.90 (4.4%)

Leeds: Gathering Storm - £2.90 (4.4%)

Tom Wood’s Beer: Devils T’Ale - £2.90 (4.5%)

Black Hole Brewery: Hubble Bubble - £3.10 (5.5%)

...our customers voted for Leeds: Gathering Storm!

Congratulations to them, award and official notification is currently on it's way!

Response from Leeds Brewery:

"The award is great news and our brew team are delighted. Good luck with your future festivals and best wishes for the future."

- Sam Moss.

Beer Festival #3

From the following...

Shardlow: Fools Gold - £2.90 (4.5%)

Nottingham: Legend - £2.90 (4%)

Nelson: Friggin’ in the Riggin’ - £3.00 (4.7%)

Brentwood: Hope and Glory £2.90 (4.5%)

Brentwood: Roy Rogers £2.80 (3.8%)

Great Oakley: Wagtail £2.80 (3.9%)

Cathedral: Amber £2.90 (4%)

Hart: New Rose £2.80 (3.8%)

Ringwood: Fortyniner £3.00 (4.9%)

...our customers voted for Great Oakley: Wagtail!

Congratulations to them, award and official notification is currently on it's way!

Response from Great Oakley:

"That’s brilliant news…….it makes all the hard work worthwhile."

Beer Festival #2

From the following...

Oldershaw: Sunnydaze: - £2.90 (4.0%)

Oakham Ales: Warped - £2.90 (4.3%) One off special!

Hadrian & Border: Secret Kingdom - £2.90 (4.5%)

Warwickshire: Warwicks Market Ale - £2.90 (4.9%)

Hambleton: Nightmare Stout - £3.10 (5%)

Newby Wyke: White Sea - £3.10 (5.2%)

Brewsters Hophead - £2.80 (3.6%)

Nottingham: Rock Bitter - £2.80 (3.8%)

Springhead: Liberty - £2.80 (3.8%)

Jarrow: JB Bitter - £2.80 (3.8%)

Wold Top: Big Sky - £2.80 (3.9%)

Titanic: Lifeboat - £2.90 (4.0%)

...our customers voted for Brewsters Hophead!

Congratulations to them, award and official notification is currently on it's way!

Response from Brewsters:

"Thanks very much for the "Best of the Fest" award for our Hophead. We're really pleased that it's been so well received by your drinkers...pass on our thanks to them!"

Beer Festival #1

N/A

Monthly Beer Festivals

We are keen advocates of the Real Ale movement (as is evidenced by us being the first non lager pub in Cambridge). We are building on this by introducing another innovative service, MONTHLY beer festivals. To be exact, monthly during the summer. We might phase them out during the winter and start them up again during the spring. We are learning what's appropriate as we go along - and it's a sharp, but fun, learning curve!

'Best of the Fest' Award Scheme

In addition to this, since our second beer festival we also run the 'Best of the Fest' Kingston Arms Award Scheme! We have no say or control over who wins this, it's based purely on customer votes. And it's a good way of recognising some of the hard work, and talent that brewers exhibit.

Festival History (most recent/upcoming first)

Beer Festival #5 (3 Dec Thurs- 14 Dec Mon)

Our next beer festival will be run as part of the Mill Road Winter Fair Celebrations.!

Beer Festival #4 (29 Oct Thurs- 9 Nov Mon)

Our Halloween Beer Festival has been the most successful yet! the Halloween themed beers, roast chestnuts, marshmallows for cooking over our fires, low lights, candles and Halloween decorations have proved most popular.

Beer Festival #3 (24 Sep Thurs- 4 Oct Sun)

We were surprised about the number of customers! And as a result we will run the next festival with more staff.

The beer cooling unit also needs replacing.

The Best of the Fest! is proving popular, with a large number of votes.

In short, a success all round!

Beer Festival #2 (20 Aug Thurs- 30 Aug Sun)

All the changes have resulted in a MUCH smoother running beer festival. Customers like the outdoor covered festival, and we introduced an outside bar which went down well.

We also tied the festival in with some of our other attractions so we could offer Festival Highlights.

Monthly Beer Festival - Highlights

20 (Thurs): Evening BBQ & Beer Festival

21 (Fri): Beer Festival

22 (Sat): Beer Festival

23 (Sun): Lunchtime BBQ & Beer Festival

24 (Mon): Evening Live Music ('Late Risers') & Beer Festival

And we had a lot of votes for the Best of the Fest!

The only aspect that needs improving is the dates. Because we want to run the stock down, and there is no way to accurately forecast when that will happen, we added dates to the festival, and advertised this via the website and our Privilege Club. For the next festival we will plan for a longer run time from the start.

First Beer Festival #1 (Mid July)

We tried to use our internal air conditioning to cool our beers, and to this end we made an indoor beer tent. It wasn't ideal. The beer was cooled, but we had to lose indoor seating which affected our diners.

We therefore decided to host the following festival outside in our covered garden.

Although we advertised extensively it wasn't widely known.

The feedback from those people who did attend (most notably Adam Walker, who writes an interesting 'pints & pubs' blog) was very enthusiastic. So lessons for Beer Fest #2, hold it outside under cover, source alternative cooling, use tasting notes, and implement the award scheme.