Swindon Beer Festival 2011
The 25th Swindon Beer Festival at the STEAM Museum, Kemble Drive, Swindon SN2 2TA from Thursday 27 October to Saturday 29 October.
This has been our venue since 2006.
The 4 sessions:-
| Thursday 27 October | 6pm to 11pm | admission £5.00 |
| Friday 28 October | noon to 3.30pm | admission £5.00 |
| Friday 28 October | 6pm to 11pm | admission £10.00 |
| Saturday 29 October | noon to 9pm | admission £4.00 |
Over 100 beers, including the keenly awaited 25 Silver Pigs Stout specially brewed by Ramsbury Brewery for this 25th Swindon Beer Festival.
More than 20 ciders and perries - among them several from Wrede, the Highworth Business Group that turns local apples and pears into fruit juices, ciders and perry.
Here is the final beer list.
Stanway Stanney Bitter from a small Cotswolds brewery was not available previously, but turned up on Monday 24-Oct with all the other beers.
The final list above reflects these changes.
And here is the list of ciders and perries.
We did get more ciders and perries as we ran out of some because of greater demand than anticipated.
We featured quite a number of local beers - as part of CAMRA's LocAle campaign. In order to determine which beers qualify, we have produced a map showing the distances of local and not so local breweries from STEAM. If the brewery is within 30 miles travelling distance of STEAM, we have decided to classify it as LocAle.
The LocAle logo can be seen on 36 cask labels of our beer festival. This represents about a third of the total beers.
Click on the link to show a Google map of breweries in a separate window.
The Location map below shows where the Swindon Beer Festival takes place.
Special Festival buses
For the Thursday and Friday evening sessions there are special Thamesdown bus services.
These will collect from the main road near the National Trust Office.
The route is Kemble Drive - Railway Station - Town Centre (Bus Station/Fleming Way)
The bus costs £1 per person and leaves at the following times:-
• 10:15pm
• 10:45pm
• 11:15pm
Bus tickets are only available from the membership stall.
Swindon Beer Festival 2010
The 24th Swindon Beer Festival was held at the STEAM Museum, Kemble Drive, Swindon SN2 2TA from Thursday 4 November to Saturday 6 November.
This has been our venue since 2006.
This year's Swindon Beer Festival has been a great success.
We had a record number of beers. On Saturday there was still choice of over 100 beers available, so a Saturday visit is well
worthwhile.
The attendance over the three days was 2213 - up on last year.
Ramsbury Brewery were present with their own bar for most of the festival.
The Saturday afternoon music by Bob Bowles went down very well too!
In other words, this has been our best and biggest beer festival to date.
However, having said all that, we may well be faced with much higher charges for the venue from Swindon Borough Council.
Swindon CAMRA uses the beer festival to raise campaigning funds for CAMRA.
If that is not possible any more, who knows what will happen ...
Here are the winning beers:
| Position | Brewer | Beer | ABV |  |
| 1st | Box Steam | Derailed | 5.2% | |
| 2nd | Old Bear | Sun Bear | 4.2% | |
| 3rd = | Castle Rock | Harvest Pale Ale | 3.8% | |
| 3rd = | Fyne Ales | Avalanche | 4.5% | |
| 3rd = | Pit Stop | Sump | 7.0% |
Here is the final beer list.
Swindon Beer Festival 2009
The 23nd Swindon Beer Festival was held at the STEAM Museum, Kemble Drive, Swindon SN2 2TA for the third year running from Thursday 29 October to Saturday 31 October.
Here is the final beer list.
Winning entries for various competitions
Champion Beer of the Festival
Fyne Ales - Avalanche
Runner Up: Green Jack - Orange Wheat Beer
Category Winners
Bitter
Prospect - Silver Tally
Runner Up: Blue Monkey - Original
Best Bitter
Tring - Phantom Monk
Runner Up: Moles Molegrip
Golden Ale
Fyne Ales - Avalanche
Runner Up: Bowland Bowland Gold
Mild/Stout & Porters
Rudgate - Ruby Mild
Runner Up: Hornbeam - Black Coral
Stout Strong Bitters
Arkells - Kingsdown
Runner Up: Cairngorm - Witches Cauldron
Specialty Ale
Green Jack - Orange Wheat Beer
Runner Up: Wem Cherry Bomb
Swindon Beer Festival 2008
The 22nd Swindon Beerex was held at the STEAM Museum, Kemble Drive, Swindon SN2 2TA from Thursday 30 October to Saturday 1 November 2008.
It featured over 100 beers, plus a selection of ciders and perries.
Here are the selections from the tasting panel for beer of the festival:
1st was Oakham Bishop’s Farewell
2nd was Mordue All Hallows Ale
3rd was Harviestoun Shiehallion
Please click on the brewery name to visit their website.
1712 people attended this three day event. This is up on last year where we counted 1564 for all sessions.
The admission fee included a half pint souvenir glass with a line for a third of a pint. CAMRA members got vouchers for a free pint. The introduction of a third of a pint measure proved quite popular as it gave people a chance to sample more beers without drinking a lot more.
All sessions had food available with a hog roast on Friday evening. Music was provided by Bob Bowles on Saturday afternoon.
A well attended Friday lunchtime session - see below.
Click on beer list (PDF) to display what was on offer. This is the final list.
Buses to the railway station and town centre were laid on again towards the end of the evening sessions.
Swindon Beer Festival 2007
The 2007 Beer Festival - the 21st Swindon Beerex - took place at the STEAM for the
second year from 1 November to 3 November.
This was probably our most successful Beerex to date. It got off to a brilliant start with over
500 people attending the Thursday evening session. Everybody enjoyed a huge variety of real ales,
ciders and perries. There was even a stall for fruit wines. Friday evening had an even bigger
attendance. Overall we counted 1564 people for the four sessions. No doubt, some
people liked it so much that they came to several sessions!
It certainly was a most enjoyable event too. Just click on
photos to display some great images.
The beer of the festival was Eddystone from South Hams Brewery in Devon.
Click on the beer list to display what was on offer.
Thamesdown provided a flexible bus service between National Trust HQ (see map below) and Fleming Way
via the railway station and Regent Circus on Thursday and Friday night at 10.10, 10.40 & 11.00pm.
How many beer festivals have their own bus services?!
To display a poster in a new window click on Poster.
Beer Festivals in Swindon
There have been CAMRA organised Beer Festivals in Swindon since 1976. Originally held at the Mechanics Institute in Emlyn Square, the last Beer Festival there was in 1983. The Mechanics Institute was offered to the local Council for £1 in 1984, but they declined to buy it because it was in a poor state, so it was closed.
Unfortunately the Mechanics Institute fell into disrepair and could not be used as a venue again. For further details on the Mechanics Institute please visit the New Mechanics' Preservation Trust Ltd at New Mechanics.
Partially as a result of this there were no further Swindon Beer Festivals until 1994. The new venue was the New College, Walcot.
After 5 years at New College the Beer Festival moved to the Territorial Army Drill Hall in Church Place in 2000. Although the Drill Hall was slightly smaller its more central location proved very popular and it was our venue for 2000 and 2001. The Drill Hall was not available in 2002, consequently our Beerex could not take place.
In 2003 we moved to the Old Railway Museum in Faringdon Road, where we held successful Beer Festivals three years running.
In 2006 we took the opportunity to move to STEAM, the Museum of the Great Western Railway,
close to the tracks of the mainline. That year was of course Brunel's bicentenary.
We have now had two very successful Swindon Beer Festivals at this location. It looks
as though we might be here for some time with a bigger event than before:
STEAM - Museum of the Great Western Railway
Kemble Drive
Swindon
SN2 2TA
Click on postcode for a Google map.
Click on CAMRA logo for national website
