London's Largest Beer Festival Returns to Ealing
Volunteer run event being held in Walpole Park's s big top
Attendees in the big top at a previous beer festival. Picture: Camra
July 2, 2024
This year’s Ealing Beer Festival is once again taking place in the Big Top in Walpole Park. The festival, which runs from 10 to 13 July, will have a huge range of real ales, ciders, perries, world and keg beers as well as English wines and mead.
There will be 340 real ales ranging from 3% ABV all the way up to 12%. Local brews will be available from the Marko Paulo Brewery which operates from the rear of the Owl & The Pussycat Micropub on Northfield Avenue and Perivale Brewery based at Horsenden Farm. Walpole Oakey Dokey is a collaboration brew between the festival and the brewery and is named after the big oak tree in the park.
The event plays host to the Champion Beer of London competition. Christine Cryne, organiser of the competition said ‘The beers in the competition represent the best cask beers in London as determined by the autumn vote by London CAMRA members for the Champion Beer of Britain (CBOB) and CAMRA’s London Tasting Panel.’
Judges are picked from a range of licensees, beer writers and experienced beer drinkers. The winner will be announced on Thursday afternoon.
Mayor of Ealing, Councillor Yvonne Johnson, will be attending the beer festival at 4pm on Wednesday 10 July. Fellow councillors have also been invited to attend along with the local MPs.
The festival will feature an extensive range of cider and perries from areas including Wales, the West County, Kent, Herefordshire and Ayrshire! All of the cider is made using 100% apple juice (or pears, if it’s perry), and if other fruit is added, then it’s natural, not from concentrate.
The world bar will feature bottled beers from some of the smaller breweries of America, Canada and Europe. As usual there will be a large range from Belgium and Germany. Low alcohol and soft drinks will also be available.
Joining the increasingly popular wines from Brightwell in Oxfordshire and Lyme Bay in Devon is Denbies from Dorking and Loxwood Meadworks of Billingshurst. Lyme Bay will also be supplying 9 meads which have become increasingly popular.
The food suppliers are The Crusty Pie Company with its familiar mix of pies, pasties, sausage rolls, pork scratchings and baked goods. Paul Molins also returns supplying roast pork, sausage, burgers, chips and gravy. Mr Bombay serves Indian street food. Berlin Doner will be serving chicken / lamb, gyro / souvlaki and halloumi and falafel gyro / souvlaki. New for 2024 is Fine Street Events serving up Fish and Chips andHotdogs! Finally Ferrante Ices will be serving sweet treats for all climatic occasions, with ice cream and churro's being available whether the weather is hot or cooler!
Entertainment will be provided on Wednesday evening by Frankie Connolly; Thursday evening is The Semi Detached; Friday afternoon is Liza Marshall and Simon Bishop; Friday evening The Crusin' Mooses return and finally on Saturday afternoon it is Steve Whalley.
Festival organiser, Ben Hart, pays tribute to those who work the festival, saying, ‘Ealing Beer Festival is staffed by volunteers who fill most of the roles that you can see and some that you can't. Setting up a beer festival is no mean feat, and we totally rely on the experience and hard work that our volunteers put in.'
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