Wantage Beer Festival 2018

A Friday evening trip out to West Oxfordshire to visit the 8th installment of the Wantage beer festival.

This festival is held in a modern venue, The Beacon, which puts on activities such as 'body control pilates' and 'Egyptian dance classes', so it's probably a bit of a different crowd this weekend who are attracted by 28 real ales.

On a small scale, the festival always has a friendly and welcoming atmosphere.

And it's always a nice touch being served by a man in a fez....

Fez

With the smaller CAMRA festivals I do approach with a scepticism that there will be one too many 4% golden ales on the list.  But here, it's a relatively adventurous selection, taking in US IPAs, a coffee pale ale, a forest fruit porter and a port mild.  All the kinda stuff I like.
As last year, White Horse CAMRA have focused on a number of local beers, but many of these are things that I don't often find in central Oxford pubs: Bellingers, OxBrew, Church Hanbrewery. But someone has also been gathering ales from Northumberland thus ensuring no-one should be grumbling that they've "had 'em all before".

A man with a guitar and a less than captivated audience

With the main room where the bar is being full, we settled in the cafe area, taking advantage of the pasties on sale, while working our way through the most interesting beers on offer.  The Flash House 'Forest Fruit Porter' was very tasty and reminiscent of the much lauded Titanic Plum Porter.  But I reckon it's Wild Weather's 'End of the Level Boss', a double IPA, that is the winner for me this evening - fearsomely easy to drink for its hefty 9.2% strength.

Drinking up, we decided to head 5 minutes down the road to the Royal Oak (Newbury Street, OX12 8DF).

The Royal Oak, Wantage

This is a classic corner pub which has won a multitude of awards and clocked up 25 years of inclusions in the Good Beer Guide.
The long-standing owners have the privilege of having two West Berkshire Brewery beers named after them - 'Dr Hexter's Healer' and 'Dr Hexter's Wedding Ale'.  Both were originally brewed specially for the pub and have since become widely available. 
Heading through the main door there is a choice of two rooms.  To the left is a public bar with table football and darts whilst to the right is the busier and more comfortable Saloon, which we gravitated towards.  There are no distracting TVs and games machines here, just a big display of pump clips and hop bines attached to the iron-work above the bar.  The  walls are adorned with awards and pictures of maritime 'Royal Oak' namesakes.

Ales are chalked up on a blackboard at the side of the bar and are fetched from the cellar, straight from the cask.   I opt for a tasty pale from Totally Brewed, then can't resist the 10% 'Belgian Trippel' by Fisher's from High Wycombe.  Which acts as a lovely nightcap before catching the bus home.