The annual wetherspoons real ale festival 2017

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Godsdog

Landlord.
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Near Walsall west midlands
popped in this dinner time to try some samples and had these 3,and I have to mark them all at no less than 4/5:thumb: all excellent ales and kept beautifully,i will update as I go along we have until a week on sunday so im hoping to get a fair wack of the minimum 30 on offer:whistle::lol:
please feel free to add your comments should you try any on offer at your local spoons:thumb:

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I've got a night out on Saturday so hopefully my local has some decent ones in - the last 3 times I've been in the cask ale choice has been Abbots or Doom Bar with all the other pumps off.
 
Lucky you, we went to 2 yesterday thinking it was the 1st day of the festival so should be lots of choice and they had 2 of the 30 listed between them.
They did have a couple of un-listed ones so I guess they were from the day before the festival started and were being used up.
Off to a different one tonight so keeping fingers crossed.
I've noticed that the range of guest beers is decreasing generally in their pubs and they seem to be pushing their craft range more and more, pity really :(
 
Lucky you, we went to 2 yesterday thinking it was the 1st day of the festival so should be lots of choice and they had 2 of the 30 listed between them.
They did have a couple of un-listed ones so I guess they were from the day before the festival started and were being used up.
Off to a different one tonight so keeping fingers crossed.
I've noticed that the range of guest beers is decreasing generally in their pubs and they seem to be pushing their craft range more and more, pity really :(
They do tend to have a few unlisted ones outside of the stated 30 at every one of their festivals,our spoons has a good manager who puts on the festival with great gusto twice yearly and am confident he will showcase over 2/3rds of them as he always does
 
Like you say, I think its all down to the individual managers, the local ones to me use to have managers that always had new guest beers in, always a joy to walk in and not know what guests there would be but they have moved on and the new managers seem very lack luster regarding their ales now.

Of the 30 listed I ticked about 10 i'd love to try, the Mosaic and Pink grapefruit ones were on the list so you are indeed very lucky........:thumb:
 
At my 3rd Wetherspoons finally found a winner, still only had 2 on though which for a 'beer festival' offering a choice of 30 is poor, however this was a stunning beer.

If you like a crisp very light coloured beer thats got a tropical taste with hints of grapefruit and lemon you'll certainly enjoy this one.

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I've got a night out on Saturday so hopefully my local has some decent ones in - the last 3 times I've been in the cask ale choice has been Abbots or Doom Bar with all the other pumps off.

They have ONE beer on from the beer festival! ONE! It’s the Zululander and it’s nothing special. At £1.69 a pint I can’t really complain though!
 
todays samples with the gold star of the day going to the chestnut red followed by the Azacca PA,the Banana bread beer was quite lovely too but didn't like the Farnham White very much,wednesday lunch is the next visit:thumb:

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Having laid off the ale for over 13 days,save for two 25cl bottles, i decided to pop into one of our local Spoons. Had a pint of Atlas Nimbus which went straight back, bloody terrible muck,clearly not right,replaced with a pint of Hook Norton Haymaker, mmmmmmmmm very dissapointed, it was ok,nothing to say oh yes i will have another of those thanks.. Yet again,as of late i have found some of these beers wanting and in truth a lot of my own beers are much nicer.
Also yet again nowt uner 5%
 
Tried my 4th Wetherspoons since the festival started and they actually had 4, yes, 4 from the list on.

Marsdon's 'Early Doors', 6.0 % so too strong for 5pm.

Titanic 'Red Indian Pale Ale', 5 %......the write up didn't impress me.

Atlas 'Nimbus', 5 %, liked the sound of it, tasted ok but nothing special.
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Rooster's 'Pistol River', 4 %, easily the best, tropical fruit with a hint of grapefruit, lovely.
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One more visit tomorrow to the 3rd pub again, hopefully a decent choice......
 
this dinner times offerings, the midnight sun was rather exceptional but the late red nearly as nice but had the better conditioning with excellent lacing down the glass:thumb:

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Well last night was my final visit to this Autumns festival, overall I was pretty disappointed with the selection, or rather lack of it.
Once again only 2 on and the ever increasing 'available soon' sign on 1 other.

I only tried one, 'J W Lees : Weaver's Shuttle, 4.1%' not too bad, light in colour and pretty tasty, the tasting notes said fruity tangerine but I didn't get that although it had the familiar tropical taste in a rather subtle way.

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The other offering was 'Arcadia : Autumn Wheat' but at 6% a bit to strong when driving.

The 'available soon' was 'Cotleigh : Chocca Mocca' 4.3%, not my cup of tea so no loss really.

As I said, a rather poor event, I can remember them from years ago and they were certainly better, wonder why ??
 
We were supposed to be getting a spoons here but the keep Ulverston special (sic) group campaigned against it and all those that wanted one lost out. :mad:

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Godsdog, you need to treasure your local Spoons, seems like the manager there runs it like they all use to be run, unfortunately most that I go to are no where as good as yours looks...........:sad:
 
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