CAMRA South West London Branch staged a successful return to the Battersea Grand Hall for the 12th Battersea Beer Festival from 6 to 9 February this year. 

A beer not normally available on draught but provided especially for the occasion. Young's Double Chocolate Stout was voted Beer of the Festival. Second prize went to Blackpool BPA and third to Pictish Brewers Gold. Also making the running were Crouch Vale Snowdrop, Fenland Fract, Oakleaf Bitter and Triple F Moondance. 

The result of the vote for the Branch Pub of the Year for 2001 was announced on the Thursday afternoon of the Festival. The winner was The Sultan, the Hop Back Brewery pub in South Wimbledon, followed by Young's Old Sergeant in Garratt Lane, Wandsworth. In third place was the Rose & Crown, the Greene King pub in Clapham Old Town, and fourth was the Brewery Tap in Wimbledon Village, a former Whitbread house, now part of the Laurel Pub Company. These two pubs both serve a range of various guest beers.

Hop Back Managing Director, John Gilbert and Young's Chairman, John Young and fellow directors were among the invited guests at the Festival that afternoon, alongside local MP Martin Linton and the Mayors of Lambeth (Claudette Hewitt), Merton (Stuart Pickover) and Wandsworth (Ron Smith). Cllr Smith made a short welcoming speech. Cllr Pickover announced the Pub of the Year and spoke strongly in support of the campaign. All went home happy.

This year a wide choice of cask ales was available through to the close on Saturday, when more than twenty still remained. Milds had sold out though - next year we must order more of them!

The Branch is grateful to all who supplied the festival, to everyone who came to enjoy it, and to the hard working staff who struggled to serve them. We want more of all of you next year, especially staff!

Among some 3,500 admissions to the festival, more than 40 visitors signed up as new CAMRA members, with the incentive of a free pint at the Festival and another at the Priory Arms, Stockwell, Branch Pub of the Year for 2000 (and therefore ineligible for the 2001 competition under branch rules). Limited numbers of Battersea 2002 tee shirts and sweatshirts, also commemorating the Priory Arms' pub of the year accolades, remain available from the Branch.

Many visitors took the opportunity to offer written comments to the organisers on their Beer of the Festival forms. The comments will be collated on the new beer festival website (www.beerfest.org) and suggestions taken forward in planning for Battersea 2003.

Stephen Blann

Festival Organiser, Battersea 2002