A Beer and Cider Festival in Stoke-on-Trent.

British beer and cider have been made for many years, but after the 1960's many of the individual breweries were 'bought-out' or 'taken-over' and their brews disappeared. Mass production caused the method of brewing to change.  The pubs needed different equipment for these new, mass-produced, beers and Britian nearly lost an important part of its heritage.

Fortunately a group of drinkers who were passionate about the old 'real-ales' came together to 'Campaign for Real Ale'. The idea grew and it changed into an organisation known as 'CAMRA' ( www.camra.org.uk ). It has nothing to do with photography.

Wherever you live in my country, there will be a CAMRA group nearby (www.camra.org.uk/branches ). At the moment it costs about £23.00 per year to join and receive your membership card.  As a member, you can go to meetings, discuss news about beer, cider, country wines, and festivals. You will be able to help to organise events, visits, campaigns and, perhaps,develop your group's web-site. The work of each group is usually printed in a small magazine which is then posted to each member in the area.

In the City of Stoke-on-Trent, the active members of the 'CAMRA Potteries' ( www.camrapotteries.co.uk ) group spend a year planning its major activity and this year, 2012, the "Stoke-on-Trent Beer and Cider Festival" celebrated its 32nd anniversary.

Planning a successful festival in Stoke means that there is a lot of work to do. Fenton Manor Sports Complex ( www.stoke.gov.uk/fentonmanor) must be 'booked' and the 'group must agree on their aims. This year they wanted to 'show-off' the beers which are brewed within a radius of 35 miles as well as inviting a selection of breweries from all over Great Britiain to send examples of their beers. Only then could the 200 barrels of beer, 50 barrels of cider and the country fruit wines be chosen and ordered. Someone has to be in charge of publicity. Someone else will be responsible for producing, editing and printing the programme. Every visitor is given a programme and a celebration beer glass and the badge for the year has to be designed and for the beer glasses, the programme and the publicity. Security and safety staff will be needed for the 3 days, as well as a variety of different music groups and, naturally, there must be pies and sandwiches. Volunteers will be needed to work behind the bars and more volunteers will be needed to 'build' the huge bar and the 'racking' to hold the 250 barrels inside the sports hall. Someone has to print the 'barrel-ends' with the name, the strength, the colour and price of the beer. It is also very important to have people who are skilled in the care of the barrels, and the beer, because Real-ale is a 'living' liquid and continues to 'live' when it is in the barrel. Someone is also needed for the stall where visitors can buy National and Local CAMRA books, magazines and t-shirts and then there is the stall to helpto raise money for charity. Volunteers are also needed 'on the door' to collect entrance money and give-out the programmes and  beer glasses.

A peculiarity of a Beer Festival are the 'tokens'. Volunteers are also needed as 'token sellers' to sell 'token cards'. As you already know, Stoke festival orders 200 different barrels of beer, 50 barrels of cider a lot of bottles of country fruit wines and a selection of bottled, high-quality, European beers. Over the 3 days, Stoke CAMRA expects about 4000 visitors and so the volunteers have to work hard. They talk about the drinks and fill beer and cider glasses; they have no time to collect money and 'give change' to their customers. So, instead, the bar staff have pens!

This is how the 'beer tokens' work. The customer purchases a small card (or 'token') for £5.00. The card has squares with '20p', or '10p', printed in each square. The price of each beer or cider is on a large card, called a 'barrel-end', attached to the barrel. The customer then goes to the bar, chooses the drink and the bar-staff 'cross-out' squares totalling its cost. When no more numbers are left visible on the card, the customer buys another card. When the customer wants to go home, the token sellers refund any 'money left on the card'. Many customers who have a total of less than 100p on their card choose to drop it into the charity box. Some, generous, visitors dropped unused cards into the box! These tokens are then counted and their value is given to the chosen charity and this year the charity is the local 'Douglas Macmillan Hospice' ( www.dmhospice.org.uk ).

The Stoke Festival lasts for three days. On the Thursday there are two sessions. The first,  from 2.00pm until 5.00pm; is traditionally the session to which brewers and pub landlords are invited. At 5.00pm no more drink was served and all the visitors have to leave. The second session, from 6.00pm until 11.00pm, is the first 'after-work' session where we expect to be very busy serving those people who have been hard at work all day. The next day, Friday, also has two sessions; 11.00am until 4.00pm,, when the doors close and then the doors open again at 6.00pm. This session ends at 11.00pm and is usually the busiest session as people celebrate the end of their working week. On Saturday there are also two sessions; but if you attend the first, from 11.00am until 5.00pm when the doors close for an hour, you will be allowed to stay inside to be ready for the second session from 6.00pm until 11.00pm. All of these 'opening hours' are granted by the Local Council and must be carefully observed. We have very strict laws to do with alcohol in the United Kingdom!

So, for these three days each year, people come to the Stoke Festival and the CAMRA Potteries volunteers give up their own time for the sake of supporting and promoting an ancient tradition and helping to preserve our heritage.

As a student of, or even a visitor to, the United Kingdom, you can be forgiven for not knowing of these Festivals. But if you intend to visit the United Kingdom, maybe you would be interested to look at the CAMRA website festivals page ( www.camra.org.uk/page.php?id=4 ) . It could be worth your while!