First All Otley Beer Festival, Pontypridd, Review

The First All Otley Beer Festival, Pontypridd

Posted on 16. May, 2010 by Robert Gale in Beer Festivals

Otley Beer Festival @ The Bunch of Grapes

For the first time, the Bunch of Grapes (read review) in Pontypridd has held an all Otley Brewery beer festival. The festival kicked off on Friday 14th May and was due to run until Sunday 16th May but due to the popularity of the festival and some excellent weather on the Saturday menat that the festival bar had been drunk dry before the last day.

Available on between the temporary festival bar and the main bar were no less than 18 Otley beers, an impressive feat from a small brewery. Available were the regular Otley beers along with all of the seasonals and Otley OF which is brewed for the Fagin Ale & Chop House pub further down the valley in Taff’s Well.

Otley Beer Festival @ The Bunch of Grapes

Here’s the full list that were still available when visited:-

Otley – O1
Otley – O8
Otley – O6 Porter
Otley – O-Garden
Otley – Motley Brew
Otley – Dark 8
Otley – O2
Otley – O4 Colombo
Otley – O3 Boss
Otley – O5 Gold
Otley – Dark O
Otley – 11038
Otley – Americano
Otley – Shado
Otley – O Ho Ho
Otley – O Mai
Otley – Croeso
Otley – OG

The beer of the festival for me was the Dark 8 which is a blend of Dark-O and Otley 08. It was a very rich beer that, like O8, didn’t taste too strong.

If you weren’t a fan of Otley beers there was also a selection of ciders and perrys, lagers such as Lindeboom and Dab and a fridge full of reasonably priced bottled beers from around the world. I couldn’t resist having a bottle of the very sour Cantillon gueuze.

Otley Beer Festival @ The Bunch of Grapes

The pub is known for its quality food and on the Saturday there was a BBQ serving really good food including homemade burgers and sausage and rump steaks. All the bread and rolls were made by the pub and at £3 for huge burger, I couldn’t resist having one or two throughout the day in a bid to help soak up all the beer that was going down well.

Venue Location

The Bunch of Grapes

40 Ynysangharad Road

Pontypridd

CF37 4DA

Tel: 01443 402 934

www.bunchofgrapes.org.uk

Robert Gale (Twitter: @awv)

Beer Taster, Pub Attendee, Photo Taker

Robert Gale likes beer, pubs and beer festivals. He also likes to take photos of beer, pubs and beer festivals. Most weekends of the year you can find him travelling around the UK (and sometimes beyond) photographing and reviewing good quality pubs and beer festivals. He also has a day job in the form of a web developer for Ozum.