I haven’t made it to many beer festivals this year—blame that on the Greywood family growing by 25% in 2024! Things have been a bit more low-key lately.
However, I did manage to sneak in one small beer fest recently: the Claygate Beer Festival. This cosy gathering offers a Saturday afternoon session that’s perfect for kids. It’s held at the Scout Centre in Oaken Hill, which has a spacious outdoor area. Many of the children stayed entertained with a giant inflatable slide and endless games of chase on the grass. Thankfully, the weather held up, so we could sit outside on hay bales and enjoy the atmosphere.
There was plenty of food on offer, keeping both the little ones and the adults well-fed. Perfect!
Parking was conveniently located at the school next door, and the tickets were very reasonably priced. Each ticket came with two beer tokens and a glass. Now, here’s a tip for beer festivals: always go for halves. Two beer tokens get you a full pint, but going for halves lets you try more beers—and they’re pretty generous with their pours since it’s all unmeasured!
The real ales were mostly from local breweries that I’m quite familiar with. It was great to see Surrey Hills, Pilgrim, The Godstone Brewers, and Titsey Brewing represented. The truly local option came from Brightwater, which has its Platform 3 Micropub right next to Claygate station in town.
The number of beers on tap wasn’t overwhelming, and they provided a well-put-together one-pager with descriptions of each beer. Naturally, I made a beeline for the dark beers, which are a bit of a rare treat on cask. I went straight for Brightwater’s Coal Porter and Sambrook’s Powerhouse Porter. I also couldn’t resist Twickenham’s Nooksack, purely because the name gave me a chuckle.
I’d recently had The Godstone Brewer’s Mild at a local pub in Oxted, but it was clearly off at the time. I gave it another go here, and it was much better—probably a good few days fresher, I’d imagine.
Now, I’m looking forward to Titsey’s Beer Festival, which is just a few weeks away. Here’s hoping for more great weather and even better beer!
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