The Newbury Real Ale Festival returns at Northcroft Park

Thousands of people flocked to Newbury at the weekend to welcome the return of the town's annual real ale festival.

Around 5,000 people, including 700 children, enjoyed the Newbury Real Ale Festival at Northcroft Park on Saturday – the biggest one-day beer festival in the South of England.

In total, eager guests consumed 18,000 pints in the spirit of community cohesion.

The popular non-profit event delivered on its usual promise of fun, family-friendly entertainment, an excellent musical line-up, along with a selection of 300 different ales and ciders.

The theme of the 2022 drink list was 'Go West' and there were also a wide range of gin and rum cocktails supplied by The Catherine Wheel pub in Newbury.

Since its inception in 2003, the festival has raised more than £100,000 in donations for local organisations. This year's charitable causes were Reading-based mental health charity Sport in Mind and the Hampshire Hospitals Charity.

The total raised is not yet known.

New additions to this year's festivities included the Septemberfest Tent, a German-style bar stocked with craft ales, sponsored by Renegade Brewery.

Auditions for the Open Mic competition were also held here.

Festival organiser, David Whittingham, said: "The site has grown 25 per cent larger this year. We've got the gin and rum tents. They were here last year and also sell bubbly and prosecco.

"We've got fast tracks for our sponsors this year, without whom, we wouldn't be able to put on this festival.

"We have a really strong organising team who started work on this event last February. We try to be bigger and better every year, making tweaks and improvements based on feedback."

Mr Whittingham also thanked the 200 volunteers associated with Newbury and Thatcham Hockey Club for staffing the event and helping to restore the field to its use as a cricket pitch afterwards.

Nick Newman, winner of this year's Open Mic competition, shared his thoughts after playing on the main stage.

"What an experience," he said. "I played at the open mic a couple of years ago, but wasn't successful. This year, I think it went better than I thought it would.

''I have been to the festival a few times. I've been around Newbury most of my life, so you bump into people you wouldn't normally see which is good.''

Attendees also observed a minute's silence at 3pm, out of respect for her late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, who died on Thursday at the age of 96.

Rounding off the evening to enthusiastic applause was festival regular, The Britpop Boys, who headlined in place of Killer Queen out of respect for Her Majesty.

The date of the next festival is September 9, 2023.

All pictures by Phil Cannings.