Join us for the first ever ‘Real Food and Beer Festival at Greene King’ in the Westgate Brewery Gardens on Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th May. The Festival will take place in a large marquee on the lawn behind Westgate House, Bury St Edmunds (a few doors down from the Theatre Royal), across the gardens and into the Brewery Tap.
This food and drink extravaganza is part of the 25th Bury St Edmunds Festival, and is a celebration of local products from this excellent part of the country.
The marquee and brewery grounds will be adorned by the region’s best producers and their fine fayre, and we will of course be showcasing our own fine ales. There will be a hog roast, a venison spit roast, butchery demonstrations, hand-made preserves, local cakes and ice-creams, as well as beer master classes with Greene King brewers. Producers sampling and selling include Aspall’s Cyder, Powter’s Newmarket Sausages, Elveden Estate, Rodwell Farm Dairy, The Cake Shop, Alder Carr Farm, Kelly’s Turkeys, The Chilli Company, Jimmy’s Farm, Paddy & Scotts, Yum Yum Tree Fudge, The English Whiskey Company, and many, many more.
Tickets are £1 and are available from the Theatre Royal Box Office (01284 769505), as well as on the door at the event. Do bring along friends, family and customers to introduce them to the real Taste of Suffolk – and East Anglia.
We look forward to seeing you, but in the meantime, if you have any queries or suggestions, please contact Adam Driver on 07974 132940 or adamdriver@greeneking.co.uk.
Its official, I am now a radio personality, find out about my radio interviews on Abbot and IPA this week
It’s funny, the places this job can take you to sometimes. Last week, for instance, I spent the best part of two days up in London doing a whole string of radio interviews. I felt quite the celeb, I can tell you!
What had happened was that various stations had picked up on our new promotion for Abbot, the Abbot Ale Diploma. You should try it: just go to www.abbotale.com and enrol as a student. It navigates you to a four-part exam on the history and folklore of beer; brewing and ingredients; dispense; and how to taste beer. You can pass with a credit or a distinction and get your name on the leader board, and you also have a chance to win a £10 student grant which you can reinvest in the pub of your choice.
It’s just a bit of fun, really, although some of the stations thought it was serious and they were asking me questions like what sort of job it might lead on to! But there were a lot of genuine questions, too, about cask beer and about how many pubs seem to be closing at the moment. So it was a good opportunity to talk up good pubs and good ale, and I enjoyed it tremendously as well. Mind you, it was a bit nerve-racking being live on air until someone advised me just to forget that people were listening and treat it as a cosy chat.
Of course whenever I’m away from the brewery I seize the opportunity to taste our beer out in trade and make sure it’s getting to you in perfect condition, so I popped in to the Havelock Tavern near Olympia, which is part-owned by Lawrence Dallaglio. Lawrence is our IPA Ambassador, so although the Havelock Tavern is a free house it always stocks IPA. He isn’t often there in person, but that night happened to be one of the regular “Have a beer with Lawrence” evenings, and we had a good old chat and he offered me a signed rugby ball. I offered him one in return, which seemed to amuse him! The new Greene King IPA website has much about our involvement with Rugby and includes a blog and videos/podcasts by Lawrence and is well worth a look www.greenekingipa.co.uk
Back at the brewery we were having our half-year performance review, which is a big event in my calendar. It takes a lot of work to prepare for, but it’s an invaluable opportunity to look back at the last six months and see where and how we can do things better in the coming six months. It may be less exciting than touring the radio stations of London and hobnobbing with one of the biggest stars in the rugby world; but it’s an essential part of my mission, which is to bring you the best beer humanly possible, as efficiently and consistently as humanly possible. The glitzier side of the business is great fun and I love it, but the real deep-down satisfaction comes from the continuing drive to do the job as well as it can be done.
A great new website has just been launched for Abbot Ale www.abbotale.co.uk. This coincides with new TV advertising activity on Dave and Deja Vue channels featuring the charismatic Brian Blessed. The site includes the opportunity to view these idents and there is a very challenging test of your beer knowledge which the Head Brewers Club website will certainly assist you in. Give it a go and become a member of the Abbot Alumni.
