Burghfest 2024

Burghfest 2024, The Recreation Ground, Burghfield Common, Berks RG7 3EN

Anyone that has followed our exploits at TWICB for a while will know that we are extremely partial to a beer festival! Given this fact, you can imagine my enthusiasm when, about ten years ago, it was announced in his sleepy West Berkshire village that there was to be a beer and music festival called Burghfest!

The first few editions were strictly cask only, but as these years coincided with my growing obsession with Craft Beer, I made a tradition of nagging the organisers (sorry Robin!) before, during and after the event, about the need to provide some keg beers as well.

Roughly five years ago, mainly in order to shut me up, they ordered a few local kegs, from the likes of Siren, and for the past couple of years, there has been a decent selection of kegs from Phantom, Double Barrelled, Elusive, Disruption and others. This year there were 20 cask and 16 keg beers to choose from, which seems about right.

In the first few years, the music offering was enthusiastic local amateur bands, playing on a modest stage. This has grown to the very professional sound and light setup that we saw this year, hosting a combination of much improved local amateur bands with a couple of professional headliners. I am somewhat biased in this assessment by the fact that my youngest son’s band made their triumphant debut appearance this year! (That is him playing keyboards on the right)

The whole event raises a huge amount of money for the local air ambulance charity, and gives our village a brilliant local gathering that we are very proud of.

Burghfest also has the added benefit that I could, if the need arose, crawl home on my hands and knees, although so far this has not proved necessary!