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| Festival Description |  | |
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N.B. These are the archived details for the 2013 festival. If you are looking for the current festival details ... this is not the place!!
The Bent and Bongs Charitable Trust, in association with CAMRA, present the 24th Bent and Bongs Beer Bash, January 31 - February 2, 2013.
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| Dates and Times | | |
Opening times for the 2013 festival are:
| Thursday 31 January |
6pm - 11pm |
£6 |
| Friday 1 February |
4pm - 11pm |
£7 |
| Saturday 2 February |
12pm - 4pm
7pm - 11pm |
£6
£6 |
Please note that we are opening one hour earlier (4pm) on Friday this year
| Venue | | |
The venue is the Formby Hall, Atherton. Click here for a map.
The closest railway station is Atherton, shown on the above map (top right corner). Walking time from the station to the Formby Hall is around 5 - 10 minutes, although the return trip can take much longer after a few pints. A good place to check the train times is at The Train Line.
To walk from the station to the Formby Hall, exit the station and walk down to the traffic lights. Turn right onto the main road and walk down to the second set of traffic lights (the town hall will be on your right and The Concert Inn will be on your left). Turn left (at The Concert) onto High Street and then take the second left up to the hall.
Google has an excellent little map of walking directions.
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| Beers | | |
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For the 24th beer festival the organisers have chosen a 24 hour related theme, albeit with a bit of a twist. Instead of 24 Hours the theme for 2013 is Twenty Four Of Ours. Twenty Four of our favourite beers and brews from the festival's history.
We've put together a Twenty Four of Ours blog post to give you even more tasting notes about these fabulous twenty four beers. If you don't try at least one of them you are missing out!
Mrs Otto, the Bent and Bongs Beer Svengali, is also giving away some personal recommdations. See the 2013 Mrs Otto recommendations for the full list of Mrs Otto's thoughts.
Between the festival's favourite 24 and Mrs Otto's recommendations there should be a beer trail for everyone.
The full beerlist is here. Enjoy!
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| Music and Entertainment | | |
All sessions will feature live entertainment.
The bands lined up for 2013 are:
| Thursday night |
The Splintered Ukes |
From the musical city of Liverpool, straight up the East Lancs Rd to the Formby Hall, Atherton, this twelve piece* ukulele ensemble will be bringing their modern musical twist to the spiritual home of this most classic of all instruments.
* Nothing is guaranteed and just like the stockmarket, the number of ukuleles may go down as well as up.
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| Friday night |
Juke Box Heroes |
It's rock and roll at its best. To match the longer opening on Friday the festival's favourite rock and rollers will be playing a longer set than usual packed full of everyone's favourites. Ladies - by all means wear those heels ... but only if you can dance in them!
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| Saturday afternoon |
Cracked Flag |
Would Saturday afternoon be complete without Cracked Flag? Of course not!
Dave, Pete and Paul will be back with their unique brand of songs, stories and merriment.
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| Saturday night |
Glamorize |
Their name says it all. Sequins, shiny shirts but not a pair of silver painted wellies in sight. It's a glam rock Saturday night until either the time or the beer runs out.
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| Food and Festival Fodder | | |
All sessions will have a selection of wonderfully tasty festival fodder.
Fantastic sausages, Bury black puddings, roast beef sandwiches and if we're really lucky some hot pot. What more could anyone wish for? Put this fabulous festival fodder together with a few perfect pints and life truly doesn't get any better. (At least not without taking your clothes off!)
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| New To The Festival - Getting Your First Pint | | |
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As you enter the hall you will be given your souvenir glass and festival programme. The glass will be your drinking vessel for the whole night (or afternoon) and is yours to keep when you finally head for home. Look after your glass. Treat it as your friend. Keep it out of harm's way as there are no spare glasses behind the bars.
Remember! No glass = no beer!
The festival runs on a token system. To buy beer you must first buy tokens. The tokens are then exchanged for beer, at face value.
When you first enter the hall the token desk will be on your right, past the lagers towards the front of the hall.
Once you have your tokens just head for the bar of your choice and start sampling the wonderful beers. Please do not try to pay with cash. Those nice people on the other side of the bar cannot accept it, have no way to give you any change and will just send you across to the token desk to buy tokens.
Remember! No tokens = no beer!
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The food stall is able to accept both cash and tokens.
The hall is organised into 3 bars. As you enter the hall and face the stage the bar to your right has the draught lagers, fruit beers and bottled beers. The token desk is next to the lagers closer to the front of the hall. The bar to your left is the smaller of the two real ale bars. The other real ale bar is in the seperate mini-hall off to your left. Festival fodder is at the front left, next to the stage.
The real ales are organised alphabetically (more or less) by brewery so when looking for the beer of your choice just follow the letters.
| Sponsor the Festival | | |
It's a bit late to sponsor 2013. If you do however want to do something to support the festival, either this year or in a future year, please drop us an email and we will get in touch.
| Merchandise | | |
Current merchandise available:
Any items of festival related merchandise we have available will be listed here on eBay
We currently have a few 2012 polo shirts available that are not listed on eBay. If you want one, drop us an email and we will sort it out for you.
We also have a handful of the 2011 staff shirts. These are the hard-to-come-by shirts worn by the festival staff. They are usually allocated only to staff members volunteering at the festival and are not usually on sale to the general public. If you would like one, drop us an email and we'll set one up for you.
| Photography | | |
Dave Green, Edwin Matthews and Steve Harrison pulled out all the (f) stops for 2012, so we're trying to get them back again for 2013. What say chaps???
If you are an experienced photographer and are willing to donate a few hours to a good cause to photograph future festivals please get in touch. Ask not what your festival can do for you, but what you can do for your festival.
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| Keep Me Informed | | |
We operate our 'better than a bookmark' service to let you you know what is happenning in the world of Bent & Bongs and to keep you informed about future beer festivals. You can register for this service here simply by telling us your email address. If you worry about giving out your email address and receiving lots of spam mail in return then please do read about why this website exists and how it treats your privacy.
Why do we call it 'better than a bookmark'? Well, let's face it, how many sites that you have bookmarked do you routinely check back with for changes? A couple of emails a year make a nice reminder to what is going on in the world of Bent & Bongs.
If you want more Bent and Bongs in your life, you can follow the blog at blog.bentnbongs.com and for more still, become a fan on Facebook or follow us on Twitter: @bentnbongs
For the first time this year we are adopting the hashtag #bentnbongs for chatter about the festival. Why not tweet what your drinking, or your favourite beer of the festival or even just sing along with the band.
For fanatics, regulars and perhaps those just a little bit strange the 2012 beer festival details are here for comparison.
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