Southsea brewery cancels its beer festival WarriorFest - but sees 'mind blowing' number of delivery orders

Staggeringly Good, based in St George's Industrial Estate, Rodney Road, Milton, first held its pirate and dinosaur themed beer festival onboard HMS Warrior in 2017.

But the team behind the event has decided to postpone 2020’s event until next year due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis, according to brewery co-founder Joe Ross.

Joe, who founded the business with friends Jon Chapman and Russ Cox in 2015, said: ‘We have put a lot of thought into the festival. Unfortunately it cannot go ahead.

‘It’s not realistic to postpone it in the short term, so what we will probably do is roll over everybody’s tickets to next year and if people do want refunds they can come to us and get them.

‘We will have more time to plan (the festival), so it will be bigger and better.

‘It’s a crazy thing for us – we sold 90 per cent of tickets, more than a 1,000 tickets, so it does present a bit of a cash flow nightmare if a lot of people do return their tickets.’

But the brewery is ‘managing to pay the bills’ thanks to ‘mind-blowing’ support from the community, according to Joe, with several of its new brews selling out in minutes.

He said: ‘We had 150 of our Reptile Dysfunction mini-kegs sell out within two hours – and smaller batches of beer selling out within minutes.

‘We did a 100 cans of one beer – and it sold out within one minute.

‘We have had an amazing run.’

Despite the closure of the brewery’s tap room and the furloughing of more than 10 members of staff, the team says the lockdown has presented some ‘positives’ for the business – with plans for more new beers.

Joe said: ‘We have used this an opportunity to bring out new products.

‘We are looking at launching an Imperial Stout, and we have been working on some new stouts.’

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