Magna Real Ale Festival

[shuispoo 10]

update from their Facebook page:

 

Hi all - just a quick update.

 

We are awaiting for confirmation from Magna re: dates for our 2015 event but hoping to receive confirmation soon.

 

In the mean time, we've been advised by our friends at Rotherham CAMRA tickets are available on the door for tonight and tomorrow's New York Beer Festival, taking. Visit: http://www.rotherhamcamra.org.uk/ for more details and the all important beer list!

 

 

4/9/14

 

Hi all, as regular festival visitors know, in previous years we have used the Rotherham Show to announce the amount of money raised for local good causes, as well as confirming the dates for our next festival.

 

Due to circumstances beyond our control, it is with regret that we will not be attending the show this year. Don’t worry, it’s nothing to do with what’s been happening in town over the past couple of weeks, but simply because we are awaiting sign off of the accounts from the this year’s event.

 

Discussions with Magna concerning the date of next year’s festival are taking slightly longer than we anticipated, however, we will be in touch as soon as we have more news.

[haddy 10]

Advised earlier today that talks are still ongoing in Magna and if this does go ahead this year it will definitely not be in March but nobody is letting up as to what the issues are!

[DnAuK 10]

Advised earlier today that talks are still ongoing in Magna and if this does go ahead this year it will definitely not be in March but nobody is letting up as to what the issues are!

 

Really disappointing this. I'd been going on at length to some friends in the North East how good this festival was and they wanted to come down to it this year. I can imagine them now thinking how good really is if it might not happen. But here's hoping it does huh?

[haddy 10]

Yes same here. We have friends that come from Oxford, Manchester and Nottingham that come up to this. Hopefully will happen

[Andy C 86]

I'm sure once things are sorted out with Magna management and a new festival date is fixed then publicity will start quite quickly and we'll all know about it.

 

So - an alternative to invite your beer tourists to?

 

Obviously I'm biaised here, but I suggest getting them all here for Three Valleys Festival on Saturday 6th June. There are few other beer festivals like it!

 

You get the train one stop from Sheffield down to Dronfield where a free bus service picks you up. The buses pick up from the station every 10-15 minutes.

 

There are 18 festival venues on Three Valleys, get off the bus at whichever venue you fancy, experience it then get back on the next bus and move on! Buses call at every venue every half hour.

 

The festival venues all offer a different atmosphere and experience in varying locations - rural pubs, suburban pubs, town centre pubs, a brewery on a farm. In some the action is in the normal pub, others will have beer tents with outside bars. There is also all sorts of different foods on offer and many venues will have live music.

 

Three Valleys is also great value. Free bus travel and free admission to all venues, you just pay for what you eat and drink!

 

See http://www.threevalleysfestival.org.uk

[DnAuK 10]

Yeah 3 Valleys is great. Completely different to most other festivals and a hugely enjoyable day out, particularly if the weather is good. But not for everyone - especially the purists who like their beer all under one roof.

 

An obvious alternative to Magna at the same time of year is SiBA (I believe they were just a week apart last year!) But I'd strongly advise anyone who goes there looking to sample lots of beer to go during the day on Friday or Saturday. The evenings were rammed with people such as the couple who turned up and muscled onto our table saying 'We don't really like beer but our son bought us tickets to see the EPBs - they are so funny!' Yeah - to anyone with total humour failure, perhaps they are. And my humour ran out extremely quickly with people queuing 4 deep at the bar moaning about lack of lager...

[SteelCityAle 10]

An obvious alternative to Magna at the same time of year is SiBA (I believe they were just a week apart last year!) But I'd strongly advise anyone who goes there looking to sample lots of beer to go somewhere else.

 

Edited for accuracy

 

Beer X is possibly the most disappointing festival I've been to. An impressive list of 500odd beers, but only about a quarter on at any one time. If you go looking for particular beers chances are you're gonna be disappointed. Then they have the cheek to charge a tenner to get in - double p155take when you consider the brewers donate them the beer for free!

[DnAuK 10]

Edited for accuracy

 

Beer X is possibly the most disappointing festival I've been to. An impressive list of 500odd beers, but only about a quarter on at any one time. If you go looking for particular beers chances are you're gonna be disappointed. Then they have the cheek to charge a tenner to get in - double p155take when you consider the brewers donate them the beer for free!

 

LOL. Yeah there is that Dave. You can't go armed with a list of beers you want to try as that ain't gonna happen. But that said the same happened at the last few Sheffield CAMRA festivals at Ponds Forge (I know someone that worked behind the bar and they were told to keep turning some pump clips around to make them 'last'). Plus if you go to many festivals on a Saturday anyway you are in the lap of the Gods what is left, so I don't see SiBA as being THAT much different really. And you always have a chance that a beer you fancied will suddenly appear on the bar. That is, of course, if you can get near the bar to see what's on... which is why I suggested going early!

[SteelCityAle 10]

'holding back' beers to make them last is certainly not CAMRA festival policy... the way I see it is if you go to the last session you can't expect the full range, but if you go to the start you can! I have no objection to being told I can't have a beer cos it's all gone, that's my own fault for not going earlier - I have a big objection to being told I can't have it cos they're saving it for putative customers the next day who may or may not even want it!

[Andy C 86]

'holding back' beers to make them last is certainly not CAMRA festival policy... the way I see it is if you go to the last session you can't expect the full range, but if you go to the start you can! I have no objection to being told I can't have a beer cos it's all gone, that's my own fault for not going earlier - I have a big objection to being told I can't have it cos they're saving it for putative customers the next day who may or may not even want it!

 

It certainly isn't the policy at Sheffield beer festival with the possible exception of making sure there is beer available for the volunteer staff to have a drink after the festival closes on Saturday night at the after party.

 

As for SIBA BeerX, I like the event but last year the bar did seem badly organised - the policy of clean glass every time really puts the pressure on at busy times and quite why there weren't enough tokens printed I don't know. There were also other issues such as no broken glass bin - all these things take staff away from serving customers. It is a fairly new event though so I'd give them the benefit of the doubt and assume such things will be improved this year.

 

It certainly isn't a festival where you work of the beer list in the programme or expect a massive wall of 500 beers.

[MattRids 10]

Hi,

 

There's been a lot of comments posted about the Magna Beer Festival this year - some true, some not true, and some half truths, so I felt, as a member of the festival's organising committee that I'd do my best to respond to the questions and dispell a few of the rumours on here.

 

Firstly, I can confirm that the festival will NOT be taking place at the usual time (End of Feb/ March). There are a number of reasons for this, but we felt it was perhaps a little unfair and unreasonable to expect people to turn to two beer festivals within the space of six weeks of each other.

 

As I'm sure many of you on here are aware, the Rotherham CAMRA beer festival was originally due to take place in November, however, the New York Stadium was chosen by the FA to host an under 18s football match on the same weekend - a fantastic coup for the town, but not so great for the beer festival.

 

The only date possible to re-arrange the New York Festival was the first weekend in January: Not ideal, but the festival took place last weekend.

 

At the time the New York Festival was being re-arranged, negotiations between the Festival's organising committee and Magna were ongoing and continue to do so.

 

Both festivals are largely run by the same group of volunteers, and we felt it was perhaps a little unfair on our volunteers, as well as those who support both events to expect them to turn up to two beer festivals within the space of less than a month. A decision was therefore made to postpone the Magna festival.

 

The festival's committee is continuing to work with Magna to secure an alternative date - we are provisionally looking towards June. We will post updates via the festival's Facebook page and website.

 

Hope this helps.

[haddy 10]

I think that this will have a negative affect changing the date of this as many people include myself have come to expect the festival happen at a certain time and so have time booked off work. June us a difficult busy time for many people and I fear this will have a negative affect. Why should this event be change. I myself and group of friends will certainly only be able to make one night if at all any which is a group of 8 people attending 3 nights and we like to sample as many beers as possible so that is a good few hundred quid less thisbyear