October sees Nottingham castle open its grounds once again for the Nottingham beer festival, so let’s take a look back to 2009; and on to what we can expect for this years even bigger 2010 festival.

Nottingham beer festival Thu 14th to Sun 17th October 2010, official website

Thursday October 8th 2009 I was in London drinking in Dirty Dicks (it’s a pub, look it up) an amateur mistake for on my return to Nottingham on the Friday I was greeted at 4pm with a lot of the ‘well known’ (Thornbridge being a prime example) fantastic beers empty, already! This happens every year, and no matter how hard the organisers try with 700 beers it’s nigh on impossible to predict sales patterns, you could argue that they should increase the number of beers with a reserve barrel, but no doubt this comes a the cost of variety.

700 is now the benchmark, if you want to try the well known best beers without disappointment ensure you get down on the Thursday, but remember beer festivals aren’t all about the big boys, what about the little known brewer with an absolute gem? or the darkhorse that slipped under the radar? check back in the coming weeks for our ‘top tips’ before the festival, and any gems we unearth whilst there.

The Nottingham beer festival takes some beating, I would go as far as saying the only thing that can realistically beat the 2009 festival, is the 2010 festival. It seems finally that some of the stereotypes are being shaken off, you could see this in 2009, it was a huge mix of young and old, the pull perhaps is that it’s not all beer, there’s a ton of cider, fruit wines and fruit beers, and if you really want to tread carefully there are lagery type concoctions dotted around, but don’t expect to find a Carling tent, this isn’t Donington. (though the toilets are comparable)

Stick with us on the run-up, it’s going to be huge.