Media News - Boston Spa Beer Festival, Boston Spa, Yorkshire.

First Boston Spa Beer Festival runs dry ...

Wetherby News:  23 February 2009 Beer Festival runs dry

THE first Boston Spa Beer Festival drew a huge crowd to the village hall last Saturday.

A queue of real ale enthusiasts formed outside the building long before the event's noon starting time.

And with more than 750 people coming through the doors, the barrels of 20 different real ales - totalling more than 2,000 pints - ran dry by 4.30pm.

Organisers brought out the emergency rations of bottled ale to keep visitors happy for a further 45 minutes before declaring an end to the event.

Speaking for the organisers, Rachel Bentley said: "Our team found out that we were featured on Radio 5 Live on Saturday morning after a customer contacted the show to say they were coming to the Boston Spa Beer Festival and no doubt swelled the numbers on the day.

"Afterwards, the weight of traffic on our website crashed the site which we are in the process of rectifying."

Overwhelmed by the amount of support for the festival, which raised funds for maintenance and building work at the village hall and St Mary's CE School, the organisers have vowed to repeat the event next year.

A provisional date of Saturday, February 20, 2010, has been set, with plans to double the amount of real ale on offer.