NHC stand at the Hilden festival

[irish_goat]

Dunno about PH Plain but the B&C were definitely paying €140-ish for the likes of O'Hara's and Metalman casks.

Hilden could probably get a bulk discount from a cask distributor as well.

[irish_goat]

Yep, kegs are more around €150.

[iain_todd]

It seems to be to be indicative of my experience of craft ale and beer in Ireland. You really have to turn to Scotland or England for inventive, risky, challenging beers. In Ireland we seem too happy with malty, 3.5% brown ales or hopless red beers.

This is where the two sides of the border are divergent, IMHO. Hilden had NI and GB beers, but nothing from ROI. That was disappointing as there are some great beers brewed in the South. Including hoppy ones. Porterhouse's Hop Head (at one time my favourite beer in the whole world), to name but one, if you're looking for hops. Plenty of great stouts tool, which are perfect served on cask, but again an opportunity missed.

yes, I completely agree, ROI has some great beers and I'm assuming the RDS festival will be miles ahead of anything we've ever had in Belfast.

I seem to remember one CAMRA festival a few years ago in the Ulster Hall being great, and Hilden is usually alot better, so maybe I'm being unfair.

It just seemed that that Fyne Fest sub and I went to over the summer was on another level in comparison to anything I've been to in Ireland.

Bars like the Bull & Castle and the Porterhouse are a great example of what a good Belfast pub would be like, but perhaps we've too small a population for there to be enough craft beer drinkers to sustain it.

[Bazza]

Surely Belfast has some pubs that tick those boxes?

We do - Wetherspoons.

-Barry

[iain_todd]

Haha!

Not really. While beers other than Harp, Smithwick's and Guinness are breaking through, it's again always just the usual, uninspiring CAMRA style ales that get sold.

Most pubs in Belfast are essentially Diageo watering holes. The Hudson is perhaps the most inventive and eclectic in terms of beer, but its also the most expensive and still pales in comparison to bars I've visited in Dublin, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

[matthewdick23]

good food bazza- r u f-ing kidding me?

[matthewdick23]

The Hudson is perhaps the most inventive and eclectic in terms of beer, but its also the most expensive and still pales in comparison to bars I've visited in Dublin, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

for now...muhahahahaha

[Bazza]

good food bazza- r u f-ing kidding me?

Yes.

Tongue & cheek, which are incidentally the main ingredients of a Wetherspoons beef pie.

Seriously, though, apart from the handful that offer more than 1 craft ale on tap (e.g. Hudson, John Hewitt sometimes, The Crown for some reason, W*****spoons) and the handful of others that offer a Belfast Ale here and a Hilden there, we've very little choice.  I'd even settle for the uninspiring CAMRA style ales if I thought I could get them in more than 2 places city-wide.


-Barry

[irish_goat]

You should come to Derry. 1 bar that sells all 4 Hilden bottles, 1 bar that sometimes has Hilden bottles but you never know which and then Wetherspoons. To be fair to them, the cask is well kept, cheap and they normally have a good selection.

[FDM]

Hi all,
I hope you don't mind me jumping in here. I work at Hilden and we were delighted to see you at this years event and would certainly be more than happy to collaborate in the future.
On reading your posts I think that it is fair to point out that your participation in the event was not well thought out on our side and we should have arranged a stand outside for yourselves and if you are interested we will certainly consider that for again, although I certainly think that the Sunday would be a better day for you, maybe a better demographic, and the entrance fee is lower on a Sunday and Friday than Saturday.
A few points of clarification also about the festival which may help people to understand things from our side.
We fund the entire festival - ie the stages, sound, lighting, all the bands, all the staff - apart from the very odd volunteer ( thank you Matthew ) We bring in all the beers and provide all the dispense equipment ourselves. The only reason we didn't have beers from the south this year was due to dispense equipment and the lack of casks in the south - we have had beers from the south for years but we have gradually been getting our beers into more pubs and therefore we just don't have the same amount of pump, tappings heads etc as we used to.
Regarding our admission fees we have not changed this for three years in a row - we did do free admission last year before 4pm but unfortunately it did not work for us and actually caused a great deal of aggro on the gate from 4 - 4.30pm!!
We introduced the glass deposit last year for everyone and not just those that chose to drink from glass because of the waste that was being created. For three years previously we had been trying to encourage everyone to reuse plastic but this just didn't work. The glass deposit does work - we have reduced waste by 150% and glass theft and breakage as reduced greatly also. I think though that we will try to do a better job of explaining this to customers leading up to the festival and during so there is a greater understanding.
I do agree that there should have been some stouts on the bar -we have just brought out a new stout and had hoped it would be ready for the festival unfortunately it wasn't - it is now though!
I do promise however that we will take on board all feedback and will try harder next year.
Thanks for reading
Frances

[Dunkel]

If I can try to give a little bit of construcutive criticism. My wife and I arrived at about 3pm on the Saturday. We stayed until 5pm, then went to Hillsborough, and came back at 7pm. At this stage the queue for the cider bar was around 20 people; maybe a longer bar with more staff would have worked better. And the main bar was four deep with customers - I went off to the bar in the acoustic tent (only Hilden beers which I had all tasted before) where it still took a good five minutes to get served. I just feel more bar staff (or perhaps better trained) would have made the experience better. We enjoyed the music, but couldn't face the wait for another drink, so left at 8pm to go to the pub.

[FDM]

If I can try to give a little bit of construcutive criticism. My wife and I arrived at about 3pm on the Saturday. We stayed until 5pm, then went to Hillsborough, and came back at 7pm. At this stage the queue for the cider bar was around 20 people; maybe a longer bar with more staff would have worked better. And the main bar was four deep with customers - I went off to the bar in the acoustic tent (only Hilden beers which I had all tasted before) where it still took a good five minutes to get served. I just feel more bar staff (or perhaps better trained) would have made the experience better. We enjoyed the music, but couldn't face the wait for another drink, so left at 8pm to go to the pub.

Thanks for your reply - we are looking to do a cask bar on stillage next year to help relieve the queues on Saturday. The bars on Friday and Sunday rarely had queues - it really is a supply and demand situation - everyone wants to go on the Saturday!!

[iain_todd]

The reason I was disappointed was due to the brilliant days I have had at the Hilden Festival in the past. When I go to a Wetherspoon's 'beer festival', if it's pretty poor I generally am not fussed anyway.

But the Hilden festival is a beacon of beer drinkers' heaven in a Northern Ireland dominated by Guinness. This is the reason for my disappointment, but also the reason I will be returning next year!

RE the free entry - I can completely see how people would argue at the ticket desk and put them in a difficult situation, and understand why you chose to do away with that...

But sure, on to the next one!