Exeter & East Devon Branch

Axminster Beer, Music & Cider Festival

O'Hanlon's Brewery was the main sponsor of the Axminster Beer, Music and Cider festival over the weekend of June 27th and 28th, 2009. There were local beers from Branscombe, Otter and Palmers, and ten guest beers from other parts of the UK, but John O'Hanlon topped them all by producing a vessel holding 5 brewer's barrels (that's 180 gallons, or 1440 pints) of their very popular Yellowhammer golden beer. That's just about a ton of beer!

How to move a ton of beer When O'Hanlon's was based in London before moving to Devonshire, Whitbreads stopped brewing and were selling off some of the containers which they had used to supply clubs that needed a high turnover with minimum cellar management. O'Hanlon's bought a number of these well built tanks which are designed to be moved by forklifts and rated to 30psi. John has added a four tap outlet so four people can be served at once.

The beer was racked bright into the container and forklifted into the van to be brought the 15 miles to the festival field. A local farmer had been persuaded to bring his telelifter with forks on and easily lifted it out of the van, but needed to change sides to deliver it the right way round into the marquee where the bar was, so deposited it onto the grass and went around to pick it up again.

The idea was to put the tank on a pile of pallets, but this was too high for clearance under the side of the tent, so a quick reduction of the pile got the vessel inside and then a lift allowed the replacement of the pallets to the best height for easy dispense.

Yellowhammer - ready to go Then adding a big Yellowhammer banner to cover the original Whitbread logo on the insulation on the tank was the final touch.

John came back on the first morning of the fest and released the pressure and pushed a few metres of plastic pipe connected to a cooler into the tank, which proved up to the task - despite being inside a marquee in very hot and sunny weather, the beer came out a bit below CAMRA optimum but just right for the day. At least 1200 pints were sold out of the tank, and it kept condition right to the end. It turned out the condition was so lively, the beer had to be taken off in jugs to be poured into glasses after a chance to calm down.

The fest was a success, with popular bands on the Saturday night and crowds at the bar 5 or 6 deep. The event was run by the local Chamber of Commerce and raised about Ł4000 for the Axminster Tourist Information Centre