Beer Festival in Caerphilly

A bit of advance notice here for this event which is on Friday 17th & Saturday 18th August at Caerphilly Rugby Club
The Festival will feature a range of real ales from local breweries and also a competition for the best Welsh Pale Ale, a new category of beer based on the historical beer style of the mid-nineteenth century. profits from the Festival will be shared between Macmillan Cancer and the Association of Welsh Independent Brewers, AWIB.

Easy to find, the club is situated off Pontygwindy Road, to the North of the town centre and castle and near the Green Lady pub. Plenty of buses go up that way.
Virginia Park

Virginia Close
Caerphilly
CF83 3JA

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Masons Arms, Caerphilly

Masons Arms, Mill Road, Caerphilly, CF83 3FE
Open all day,
Food served 1200-1430, 1800-2130 Monday-Thursday, 1200-2130 Friday & Saturday, 12-1600 Sunday

The Masons is situated in a residential area of Caerphilly, just to the North of the historic castle, with Aber being the closest railway station to the pub.
The Masons is a two-story building, built around the early years of the twentieth century for Andrew Buchan's Rhymney Brewery, today the pub is owned by Enterprise Inns. The pub is slightly set back from the road and built of brick with a slate roof. Today the brickwork is painted in a light green and the contrasting plasterwork is cream. The pub sign features a stonemason working on a piece of carved stone and there is a Norman-style arched window in the background, perhaps alluding to the building of the nearby Caerphilly Castle.
There is car parking to the side and front of the pub, with the main entrance being on the right hand side of the building. This leads to a lobby, with a door to the left leading to the public bar and the corridor straight ahead leading to the lounge at the rear of the pub. The Masons Arms is one of the few pubs in the area to retain this original layout of separate bar and lounge, most of the other pubs have had walls knocked through to create open-plan drinking areas.
The front bar is large, well-lit and spacious with half-panelled wooden walls, ,darts, a pool table and a flat-screen television. This bar is more popular with the younger clientèle and those into pub games, the handpumps serving the real ales are only in the rear lounge.
The lounge of the pub also doubles as the restaurant area and a set of double doors leads to a patio area with seating. Three gleaming brass handpumps are mounted on the bar in the lounge, serving Brains Bitter and two guest ales from microbreweries such as Cottage from Somerset and the more local Celt Experience Brewery based less than a mile away at the Pontygwindy Industrial Estate; a rare local outlet for this brewery.
The food consists of pub favourites featured in the menus on the tables and chalkboard specials on the walls and bar counter, advertising 'Curry of the Week' and the 'Bad Boy Mixed Grill' which features steak, chicken, lamb chops, sausage and chips. The more standard menu features dishes such as chicken with feta cheese, chorizo and pine kernels.
The Masons Arms is decorated throughout with old prints and rugby memorabilia on the walls, as well as with some of the awards this pub has won over the years. This is a real community local with events such as a charity quiz night being held on the last Sunday of every month.

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Caerphilly gets a beer festival

The historic town of Caerfilthy will be getting a beer, cider and music festival this weekend as the ugliest building in the unitary authority, the Greenfly, is transformed into a 4 day beer festival with a free bus laid on from Cardiff and Caerphilly.

No beer range yet but they have been sourced from Tomos Watkin, Otley and Wye Valley Breweries together with cider from Gwynt Y Ddraig.

The Greenfly is in the former Bedwas Working Mens' Club; a classic example of 1960s architecture, more usually seen in former Soviet Bloc countries but shines as a stunning example of what can be achieved if you have no sense and design and access to concrete. The water-stained multi-coloured concrete rendering on the building contrasts with the green metal facings on upper parts, luckily a handily-placed satellite dish distracts from the ugliness  of this building. Hopefully the beer will be better than the venue.

Greenfly
Newport Rd,
Caerphilly,
Mid Glamorgan
CF83 8BJ

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Plenty of car parking there and there is a bus stop nearby, the X50 Newport-Caerphilly-Bargoed stops nearby.
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Caerphilly Medieval Fayre 2010

Looking for somewhere to stock up on ciders, beers and wines this festival season? Then head to Caerphilly where the castle and the town will be transformed into a Medieval Christmas Fayre over the Saturday & Sunday 11th-12th December. Yes I realise there are over 150 other stall holders there but lets face it the booze ones are the more important!

Award-winning cidermaker Denis Gwatkin is pictured with a couple of locals who have been using homeopathic remedies to cure the plague.
Denis will once again be at the show with his ciders and perries, including his Christmas special, Sant-a-Cider, fermented in rum casks and sold in presentation boxes with engraved Gwatkin Cider glasses and spices to mull it yourself.
These plague carriers get everywhere!
Ralph's cider will also be there.

 

 "You just can't get the staff nowadays!"

Above: Some of the entertainment at the castle.

Also at the Medieval Fayre will be the Jacobi Brewery of Caio, a rare chance to see their beers this far east.

Other producers closer to home include Wernddu Organics, with their ciders, perries and fantastic award-winning wines.

Last year saw the Untapped Brewery at the Fayre with their bottled beers and the local brewery Celt Experience are also hopping to have a stand at the show.

Caerphilly is easy to reach by train from Cardiff or by bus from Newport.

Gwatkin goes medieval in Caerphilly

Theis weekend will see the historic Caerphilly Castle hosting a medieval fayre.

Christmas fun and activities will fill the town centre where food lovers can savour the farmers market and continental market. Street entertainers, music, cookery demonstrations, children’s workshops and funfair rides provide a mixture of entertainment for the young and old.

The Caerphilly Medieval Market has a variety of festive entertainment with many of the activities being free of charge. Standard admission charges apply on entrance to the castle, one of the Great Medieval castles of Western Europe, although much of the entertainment around the town is free. There is also a selection of shops to browse in around the town centre.

Amongst the stallholders there will be Gwatkin Cider, Wernddu Vineyard and Ralphs Cider.

Caerphilly is easily reached from Cardiff via bus or train - journey planner below: