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Beeses Beer Festival
On Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 October 2006, Beeses held its first beer festival. The following ales were available:
Badger Ales Fursty Ferret
Badger Ales First Gold (http://www.badgerbrewery.com/)
Bath Ales Gem
Bath Ales Wild Hare (http://www.bathales.com/)
Butcombe Bitter (http://www.butcombe.com/)
Hogs Back T.E.A. Traditional English Ale (http://www.hogsback.co.uk/)
Wickwar BOB (Brand Oak Bitter) (http://www.wickwarbrewing.co.uk/)
The most popular ale by far was the T.E.A., and we will certainly be getting that back at Beeses before long.
There were also two ciders and one perry (all made by Westons - http://www.westons-cider.co.uk/): Bounds Brand Scrumpy (alc 4.8% vol), Old Rosie Scrumpy (alc 7.3% vol) and Herefordshire Country Perry (alc 4.5% vol). The Old Rosie went alarmingly quickly, but luckily there were no serious casualties...
Live music
There was live music throughout the festival. On Saturday afternoon, Gypie Mayo (ex-Dr Feelgood and The Yardbirds) was originally booked to play a couple of solo sets, but he turned up with Kevin Brown in tow, one of the UK's most well-known slide guitarists. This was something of a coup for Beeses as this was the first time that these two excellent guitarists had played together live, and Kevin featured on slide and lap steel guitar throughout the afternoon, as well as singing most of the numbers.
On Saturday night, Beeses played host to Straight Shooter, one of Bristol's best classic rock cover bands, featuring material by Thin Lizzy, Aerosmith, Deep Purple, Rory Gallagher, Rainbow, Pat Travers and many others. Straight Shooter played a blinder, and brought the first night of the Beeses Beer Festival to a rocking close.
Straight Shooter were preceded by Rattlesnake Shake, Pa Beeses' band. Pa realised that he had a unique chance to inflict his band on a captive audience, and so they were treated to a half hour of rocking R'n'B (no, not Beyoncé!), most of it ripped off from the mighty ZZ Top.
On Sunday, Eddie Martin was due to play, but due to a bit of a mix up, this never happened. Luckily, Andy Couzins was on hand to save the day, and he played between 2:00 - 6:45 with just two twenty minute breaks! With over 200 songs in his repertoire, Andy entertained the punters all afternoon, and we were indebted to Andy for helping us out of a tight spot.
Thanks...
Ma and Pa Beese would also like to thank the following people, all of whom worked tirelessly to help make the festival the success that it was:
- Ben and Carol, who helped out mainly on the food, but wherever else we asked them to (especially the washing up!)
- JJ Quick of Sapphire Sound who delivered a great sound all weekend
- Mike and Dom, who were thrown in at the deep end and worked like dogs but had smiles on their faces all weekend
- Trevor, the lock keeper at Hanham Lock for bringing two boatloads of punters down on his day off
- Kerry, Mary and Tania for keeping the main bar ticking over
- Last but not least, Ryan and Leah, Ma and Pa's children, for putting up with our mad ideas (and James, Leah's boyfriend, for running the ferry)
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