Saturday, August 1, 2009

Hawkshead 3rd Annual Summer Beer Festival

On July 25th a group from my favorite local pub (The Swan Inn, Ulverston, UK) chartered a bus over to the Hawkshead Brewery in Staveley, UK to attend the 3rd Annual Hawkshead Summer Beer Festival.

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Hawkshead Brewery

The trip over took about an hour and after a few wrong turns by the bus driver we made it to the brewery for the festival. When we arrived we were met with a huge tent and a couple of food vendors and we set off to start tasting some real ales. They had an impressive collection of 30+ real ales to select from in the tent and in the upstairs Beer Hall.

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Various Views from Around the Festival

We grabbed some beers and headed out onto the back deck of the brewery that overlooked a river.

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View from the Brewery Back Deck

We had hoped to get a tour of the brewery but it was way too busy for anyone to break away and show the group around. From the beer hall there was a good view of the inner workings of the brewery via a window.

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Looking Down at the Brewery

Once we had tried out various beers at the festival we decided to take a walk to The Watermill Inn and Brewing Company in the Village of Ings, a local pub that had a small brewery of its own. One of the group members knew the owner and was able to get us a tour of their brewing operations.

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The Water Mill – A Nice Morgan was Parked Outside, Tour of the Brewery

After some lunch (mmm venison stew) and a few of the beers brewed on site (Collie Wobbles was really good) we headed back to the beer festival to listen to a band, taste a few more beers and wait for our bus to bring us back to the Swan. It was a beautiful day and a good time was had by all.

For the rest of the pictures go here.

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