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Reading Beer<br />
Festival<br />
ROUNDUP<br />
Every year, for four days in spring, a small<br />
part of Reading becomes home to the<br />
biggest pub in Berkshire. Now settled in its<br />
new home at Christchurch Meadows, the<br />
23rd Reading Beer and Cider Festival ran<br />
from 27-30 April this year.<br />
The festival showcases a wide range of real<br />
ales (some 550 different types) as well as<br />
ciders and perries, foreign beers and English<br />
country wines. This year the foreign beer<br />
selection was much expanded and covered<br />
brews from seven different countries so,<br />
alongside the regular Belgian, Dutch and<br />
German offerings, visitors could sample the<br />
delights of the USA, Italy, Norway and even<br />
Japan in bottled form.<br />
No festival is complete without entertainment<br />
and this year we were pleased to<br />
welcome Paul “Sinnerman” Sinha from<br />
ITV’s The Chase to act as quizmaster for<br />
our massive pub quiz. A wide range of pub<br />
games, tombola, face painting, balloon modelling,<br />
Morris Dancing and a great selection<br />
of local bands made sure that there was<br />
always something to do while enjoying your<br />
favourite drink.<br />
Contests were judged and awards made too.<br />
The festival is home to CAMRA's National<br />
Cider and Perry Championship finals and<br />
the details of those winners are elsewhere in<br />
the magazine. For the winners of the LocAle<br />
Beer of the Festival contest, see the accompanying<br />
box.<br />
Mine’s a <strong>Pint</strong><br />
20
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