Drinking in the festival atmosphere

An island's first beer festival was so successful, organisers were worried they were going to sell out before it came to an end.

Visitors to the Mersea Island Brewery Beer Festival, which finished yesterday, guzzled about 1,600 pints in the first two days.
Brewery owner and organiser Roger Barber told the Evening Gazette: “It’s been excellent. There's been a great turn-out and a great group of people.
Everyone worked hard and it’s been very successful. It’s our first beer festival and the message so far from everyone is that they want us to do it again.”
He added that staff from Colchester CamRA worked flat-out behind the bar to make sure the 200 gallons of beer reached customers safely.
He said: "We sold a lot more than we expected, and we were starting to worry that one or two of the beers would run out.”

There were 20 real ales, all brewed in Essex, on offer out the event.
 

(Extract from the Evening Gazette 18 April 2006 )