After some typical wet and windy British weather in the lead-up to the festival. we were blessed with some fine sunshine and warm temperatures on both days. 1,050 festival goers were welcomed at the lovely surrounds of Moreton-in-Marsh Cricket Club.
A range of 30 beers were available from breweries from the South and Sheffield regions, and 15 local beers gave us a fine line up of 45 casks. Thanks to the beer selection team and the Good Beer Company.
The beer styles included pale ale, bitters, IPA, stouts, porter and a brown ale. A broad range of 20 ciders and perries came from local cider producers chosen by our cider coordinator James Fry, making in total 65 choices for drinkers to enjoy.
Friday opened at 11am and the crowds built up, tasting the range of quality ale and ciders. CAMRA members from near and far turned out in force, many of whom had attended many of the previous festivals.
The cricket field soon filled up with campers who added to the customer numbers. Freefall, a local band from Cheltenham, entertained the crowds in the evening with enthusiastic dancers enjoying themselves.
Throughout the weekend Oink Catering provided extensive food offering which was very popular and the cricket club BBQ provided breakfasts for staff and campers – thanks to the local festival team for providing this.
More campers and caravans arrived for the Saturday 11am opening and a good crowd of locals were now enjoying some lovely warm sunshine. Entertainment was provided in the afternoon by Josh Edkins, and then No Tools Required rocked the evening crowds.
The first beer to run out, at 8.55pm on Friday, was Sarum Special from Barking Cat Brewery in Swanage, winning Beer of the Festival. The local Beer of the Festival was Summer Solstice from North Cotswold Brewery. All the beers were sold by 9pm on the Saturday evening with many compliments on the choice and quality of the ale.
This year’s cider and perry bar offered 14 boxes of cider and 6 boxes of perry, a total of 760 pints. All the cider and perry was from within the Three Counties apart from four Purbeck boxes from Dorset. The closest to Moreton was the four products from the hometown Pearson’s Cider.
Pleasingly the first box to sell out was the Blush medium sweet cider from Pearsons. The cider that won ‘Best by judges’ was Perry’s Farm Farmhouse Cider: full flavoured and well-balanced genuine vintage cider. The bars were staffed with our regular and reliable volunteers and our new friends from Ealing.
There was a guest appearance from Mike Pearson and Vicky Knight from Pearson’s Cider on the Friday, who were the sponsors of the festival polo shirts. Thanks to them for their support this year.
Thanks to all our great helpers, sponsors and to Moreton-in-Marsh Cricket Club for the venue. 12 new CAMRA members were signed up over the weekend. Thanks to the team who worked tirelessly on Sunday morning packing up the empty barrels, racking for collection, and clearing the site.
Many thanks to all for a great festival! Come back next year for the 20th Moreton Festival on 10/11th September 2027 when we hope to celebrate the 20 years of the festival with an extra special event.
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