Kmflett's Blog

Contemporary Cask Festival Walthamstow 25^th August

Seven years ago, August Bank Holiday Sunday 2019.

The temperature reached 90F in North-East London in the afternoon. Ben Stokes and Jack Leach saw England home to a one wicket victory against Australia in the 3rd Test at Leeds. I was there with my late partner Megan & someone got Test Match Special on the radio for that most memorable of Ben Stokes and Jack Leach innings. Not so long after of course came the pandemic

Beer in Walthamstow has changed a lot- see Blackhorse Lane etc etc

A brief post about the above held at the Walthamstow Pump House Museum which is more or less in central Walthamstow.

Local things for local people is of course a caricature of a mindset one hopes is held by relatively few in North-East London but the importance of smaller local beer festivals should not be ignored.

It was more or less sold out in advance. The toilets were fine, there was a good supply of drinking water (it was a very hot day) and there was food from the always good @winenrind (cheese toasties).

There was also a decent amount of places to sit or perch which is not unimportant as one gets older..

What about the beer I suspect anyone who has read this far is now wondering.

There was a good range of mostly local cask beer, cooled. I thought the Howling Hops kiwi sour was just the beer for a hot day and I suggest further visits to Morning Lane Tesco to acquire more kiwis and make more of it. There were also beers from the distinctly local-ish Hale Brewing (Girders, the Irn-Bru beer) Redemption and so on. Keykeg featured notably Siren’s Lemon Cheesecake sour which again is a really good drink on a hot day (in moderation as its 6.2%).

Beer was sensibly sold in thirds, halves, two-thirds and pints

Like the Stoke Newington Beer Festival held early in the year these kind of well organised events root good beer in local communities and when England won the cricket the cheer that went up reflected that (even I suspect from those who were not batting for England, unless they were Australians of course).