This time the festival is being sponsored by Waitrose who are in the process of opening next week their store in the town, which personally I'm looking forward to seeing as it means new beer lines hopefully to ponder over.
Food tents and demonstrations, entertainment and a beer festival all are there, and entry is quite reasonable, only £4 per adult, under 12's free. Opening times are sat 27th 9.30-5.30, and sunday 28th 10-4pm.
For the beer drinker stalls to look out for are Otley and Pen-lon breweries, which is a little light compared to previous years, there are also a couple of cider producers too. Full list here.
In previous years the beer and cider festivals were held in two separate pubs, the Vale of Glamorgan, and the Duke of Wellington. However last year the Brains owned newly refurbished Duke did not hold the cider festival, meaning all were crammed in the Vale, which was heaving and sold out very quickly. It seems the same is happening this year so I would suggest getting in early.
Update. 27th Oct
Its Saturday evening and we attended the festival today. Thankfully the poor weather which plagued in recent years kept away, glorious sunshine if a little chilly only. Spotted Mr Brew Wales at one of the cider stands, but I was dragged by my 5 yr old boy to the venison burgers stall before I could say hello.
Straight into the Vale at 11.30, pint of Celt Experience Bleddyn 1075, this was great, fresh and grapefruit bitter, just right for wandering around picking at the freebies from all the cheese and meat producers in the food tents. A half later on from another Welsh brewery Monty's and I chose MPA (pale ale) which was very pleasant, not quite as hop upfront as the 1075 but good still.
This was the tent of the twinning association, and it had several delights inside, just see the list above! I ended up getting the 3 bottles for £6 with glass included.
So if the Vale has sold out of beer by tomorrow then thats the place to head to!
