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New Year’s Eve 2009

Jill and Peter Sue, Pat and Eve ... singing   Tim Sue and David John and Simon Sally and Simon Pete and Lynne Jodie     Mark, Donna and Friends June   Alan, Jane and Jodie Catherine and Peter Eve showing some of her moves

One Giant Leap for Brandeston

Alan Randall

It is often said that women forget the pain of childbirth when they fall pregnant the second time. I can sympathise with those ladies. It is now Thursday morning and I am in recovery from the last two weeks of worry and preparation for what was the best weekend of my and the village of Brandeston’s life. All those hard days of work and hours of preparation and worry were worth it. The village came together in one huge group cemented by individuals who went one step further for their community and people outside the village willing to celebrate a good old English fete in the grounds of a pub.

The concept is so simple and one that seems to go like a hand in a glove: the garden adjacent to the pub is in full view of the road and no secret from the outside world; an array of stalls to attract people from everywhere to spend wisely and enjoy our village and wish they lived here for the day.

At the pub, the hours were spent behind the bar (well done to Jane and Jodie for smiling from Friday morning to Sunday night) or behind the stoves and a BBQ (well done to Dan, Maria and Adam for the hours of toil that went in over those three days).

Nobody will see the preparation that everyone did to ensure our village achieved the greatest fete of all time which made huge profits on the day.

Our beers went in on the Friday lunch time and we feel we made a very conservative choice that appealed to all tastes. As the weather changed as we awoke on Saturday, I started to worry as normal. Just keep sunny, please!!!! The clouds gave way to rain and the spirits could have been dampened but everyone showed true spirit and stayed with it. The people kept coming and buying. As a result, we managed to sell 100 burgers, 15lb of sausages and loads of chips. Healthy eating at its best!!

Once we had cleared up after the fete we needed to prepare for a packed evening and off we went into that at full speed. Clean up number two resulted in little sleep before the Sunday lunch began. Happy Father’s Day and Operation Tent-build leads into Arthur cooking the pig. For some reason I kept looking at the sky and asking for help. I did explain to the big man that after hosting the most successful fete ever at the pub, the least he could do would be to offer me some sunshine. He offered me some drizzle at 2:30 at which I could have cried. 150 people in the garden and a jazz band (the Kol Paterson trio featuring Cheryl Halliwell, left) to squeeze in somewhere. Thanks to all those people who very gratefully left their gazebos and trestle tables. I am also grateful to the chaps who brought the chairs to the pub from Rose Farm.

As the afternoon gathered pace, the sun poked itself from around the clouds and along came the best weather of the afternoon.

The clear up began in earnest and Arthur was packed off having done his bit for the weekend. The Sunday evening came with more customers and a big clear up, the last of the weekend. The final drops of beer were cleared up by thirsty chefs and the wine bottles drained by the extremely exhausted Jane and Jodie.

To make the weekend complete, we had the arrival of our three wooden friends back from their long trip away. The winner is to be announced soon and the money raised to be presented to the church fabric fund and village hall.

So, having had my second fete (child) would I do it again?? This question was asked last year and I think I said the same as I will this year. Ask me in the autumn when the pain has passed and the thought is a happy memory. Would I change anything?? No, not at all. The people were amazing, the stall holders were truly remarkable, the organisation team behind the fete spectacular, the staff at the pub the best anyone could wish to have alongside them in a time like this.

A huge thank you to everyone who came, who saw, who conquered? A big thank you also to my parents, who came for a relaxing weekend and ended up running after everyone.

Last but not least, there should be a word of thanks to the fete committee for putting faith in the pub and its surroundings for a second year. It goes to show that year one was not a fluke. Here’s to 2010. Get your thinking caps on and ideas to the table soon.

A report on the fete is available here.

Mark ready for the hog roast Dan carving   Packed tents Lady Cunliffe selling plants at the hog roast   Richard     The morning of the hog roast

Beer Festival - 19-21 June 2009

Nearly 25 years ago, I went to Denmark for the first time. The only drink that seemed to be available in the bars was lager from Carlsberg or Tuborg. The difference was academic because they were both owned by Carlsberg. It was an almost exciting experience as I could drink a Danish beer in Denmark akin to drinking Guinness in Ireland. At the tasting following the tour of the brewery, we were presented with an amazing array of tasty beers.

So, two years later when the Danes came over to the UK, it was an opportunity for them to drink local beers like Adnams or Tolly Cobbold, the Ipswich brewery at that time. Were the Danes excited by the local brews? Were they, heck! They drank Carlsberg, a beer that I feel is tasteless and gassy.

In more recent times when I went to Denmark again, they had discovered wine and were doing their very best to force the grape growers of France to plant more vines. So last weekend in Brandeston would not have been a good time to bring Danish friends over as the Queen’s Head ran its second beer festival over the Brandeston weekend with twelve beers on offer from around the UK.

Guest Beers Cliff Quay Brewery - Tolly Roger 4.2 Earl Soham Brewery - Brandeston Gold 4.5 Wolf Brewery of Attleburgh - Wolf Ale 3.9 Everards - Sun Chaser 4.0 Timothy Taylor - Landlord 4.3 Shepard and Neame - Spitfire 4.5 J W Lees - Bitter 4.0 Harviestoun Brewery- Ptarmigan 4.5 Adnams Beers Bitter 3.7 Broadside 4.7 Explorer 4.5 William Godell 4.5

Starting with two sunburst, golden beers, we could taste Tolly Roger, from the Cliff Quay Brewery in Ipswich, and Sun Chaser from Everards. Both of these were light, tasty, easy drinking beers. Tolly Roger evoked memories of the old Tolly Cobbold beers being light, gently flavoured brews. The Sun Chaser was tastier and slightly more bitter in flavour.

The disappointment of the event for me was Spitfire, Shepherd & Neame’s beer from Kent. This should have been a sharp, feisty drink full of hops from the fields of Kent making us proud of all the aerodromes dotted around our county and theirs. Unfortunately, it was more like the Fairey Swordfish, decent enough in its day but a bit slow and lumbering. On the other hand, it sold out over the weekend so a lot of people obviously enjoyed it.

Two beers that I really liked were Ptarmigan, a rich, hoppy, fruity beer from Harviestoun Brewery in Scotland, and the Adnams William Goddell. After setting up the tents on Friday, the Ptarmigan was my first beer of the festival. It was so refreshing with its really bitter flavour, I could have stayed with it all weekend. But then I tried the new Adnams beer and I liked that one just as much with its smoky notes and very bitter aftertaste. It’s a limited edition brewed entirely by women and you get your shirt ironed as well. J W Lees, which we tasted immediately after the Ptarmigan, was lifeless and lacking in character

We tried most of the others as well but the notes aren’t that legible. Suffice to say that it was a good selection of beers that we all really enjoyed. The Danes would never have known what they missed.