Harveys brewery had never permitted a beer festival (featuring guest ales from other brewers) in any of their pubs, so when Ted & Maggie took over at The Wheatsheaf they weren’t too confident that their idea of a festival would go down well with Harveys hierarchy. However, and to Harveys credit, they were persuaded to allow a trial, in part because there was a history of small festivals at The Wheatsheaf, and partly because Ted & Maggie thought this was an important factor in putting the pub firmly back on the drinking map of Crowborough. With some trepidation and fingers crossed for decent weather, we held our first beer festival over the Spring Bank Holiday weekend at the end of May 2004. It featured 12 guest beers in a marquee, with food and live music. We had very little idea what to expect, and just hoped we wouldn’t be left with a lot of unsold beer on our hands. Some chance of that! Certainly nothing had prepared us for what followed, in fact all the guest beers had sold out by the Sunday night, (though there was of course plenty of Harveys in the cellar!) and we even had to borrow some lager (yes, lager of all things) from another pub. |
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Our customers loved it, we were amazed, and Harvey’s had a real eye opener (since we sold much more of their beers than we would have done over the course of a normal weekend!). As a result, Harveys agreed to make this an annual event, and it has since grown like topsy. In 2005 we needed a double marquee for some undercover seating along with an increase to 16 guest beers, in 2006 we upped the guest beer order to 20, and in 2007 we featured 24 guest ales with cider and perry too, along with a spit-roasts, barbecues and live music. We took the festival concept a stage further by holding a second indoor festival in October 2007, which has since also become an annual event. |
We think our festivals have now reached their size limits. We can’t actually accommodate more beers, though we have constantly increased our cider and perry order which is now up to 12 varieties in 2010, we have introduced a third serving area under the smoking shelter, we have doubled the number of ladies toilets, and we have opened up another room to the public. The spit roasts always sell out very quickly, the barbecue runs all day long, and the standard of music has just got better and better each year. One thing that never changes is the fantastic commitment of our staff, there were 27 of them over the course of the May 2010 festival and they were all absolutely brilliant working under great pressure, our most sincere thanks go to all of them. |
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The Beers
Our choice of beers is quite simply made – for the May festival we pick a number of category winners from CAMRA’s most recent Great British Beer Festival, add one or two local brews, and then take a wide selection of ales from all around the country (with the daftest names possible) with a view to quality and overall balance of beer styles. In terms of strength, we attempt to keep everything within a range of 3.5% to 6% so we avoid the real falling over juice, and finally our customers can vote for their favourite beers of the festival, bringing the top three back for one further year. For our October festivals, we concentrate on craft and microbrewers, and though there is a slight bias to darker winter style beers, we still seek an overall balance.
Of course, in 2005 and 2006, Harveys Sussex Best Bitter was voted Champion Best Bitter of Britain at CAMRA’s Great British Beer Festival, a tangible reward and evidence of what Sussex drinkers have known for many years, that Harveys can hold it’s own in any company. No wonder that when the festival is over, so many of our regulars say to us, ‘that was absolutely fantastic, really, really enjoyed it, but it’s good to get back to Harveys!’