CAMRA Forth Valley

Past Events...

Alloa Octoberfest 2009

The 18th Alloa Octoberfest took place in Alloa Town Hall on the weekend of 23rd-24th October.

Below are some pictures of both the run up and during what turned out to be a very successful festival.

The success of the festival can be measured by way of the numbers, in excess of 1300, who attended over the two days and by the fact that there was very little beer left. As it was there was just enough to give the volunteers a 'carry out' after the clean up on the Sunday. These same volunteers wended their way to the Mansfield Arms, Sauchie, to celebrate the success.

The Alloa Advertiser wrote the following the week after the festival:-

The beer was flowing at Alloa Town Hall on Friday and Saturday as Octoberfest returned for its 18th year. Dozens of beers, ciders and perrys were enjoyed with some live music thrown in for good measure. The Forth Valley branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) organised the event and once again they were able to toast a successful weekend. Breweries from all over the country provided ales for local drinkers to enjoy and Brewer’s Swansong, one of the beers picked out by Wayne Thomas of CAMRA beforehand, proved to be especially popular. Iain Turnbull, the Stornoway based brewer behind Swansong, told the Advertiser he decided to brew a beer for his retirement after developing prostate cancer. Funds raised from sales of the dark, mild beer will be given to the Macmillan Cancer Charity, who Iain expects will provide him with support in the coming years as a form of thanks in advance. Enjoyed He said, “At the moment Alloa has been about as far north as Swansong has been distributed and it seems to have sold well there. “Nobody has had anything bad to say about it even those that aren’t normally keen on this type of beer have enjoyed it.” At Octoberfest members of Forth Valley CAMRA presented Iain with a cheque for £400 as payment for the beer and a donation to Macmillan.