Gosport Winterfest pulls in the punters

MORE than 1,000 drinkers enjoyed a very popular real ale festival.
Ollie Sandercock pours a pintOllie Sandercock pours a pint
Ollie Sandercock pours a pint

Gosport Winterfest pulled in 1,300 people over two days at Thorngate Halls, in Bury Road, Gosport.

Organiser had 70 real ales on offer, along with 20 ciders and 20 international bottle beers and Hampshire wine.

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Devoted ale-lovers and those new to the pint glass came along to the annual hugely popular festival.

Dave Livingstone was the co-ordinator of this year’s festival, which is a staple on the real ale calendar.

He said: ‘It went fantastically well.

‘It was very, very well attended – we’re looking forward to next year because that’s the 25th anniversary of the festival.

‘We’re starting to plan big things for that one.’

Two sessions were held on Friday and two on Saturday.

Gosport Brass Band performed on Saturday afternoon with two local bands entertaining punters into the evening.

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Many of the beers sold out despite a huge 71 casks being on offer.

Dave added: ‘Everyone is absolutely over the moon with how well it went, just the fact that there was so little beer left at the end.

‘The draught beers went down fantastically well.’

The Gosport Winterfest is organised by members of the Campaign for Real Ale each year.

Camra member Martyn Constable added: ‘It went very well.

‘Most people seemed to like it.

‘We had a good range of beers and sold out of most.’

Martyn took more of a back seat this year as he is running The Florist pub in Fratton, Portsmouth for Oakleaf Brewery.

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Plans for next year’s anniversary festival are in their infancy, but organisers hope to make it bigger and better than previous events.

Dave added: ‘We’re trying to see what we can do to really make the anniversary great.’

Members of Portsmouth & South East Hampshire Camra volunteered to put on the festival.

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