Autumn Beer & Sausage Festival

Our Autumn Beer and Sausage Festival is almost upon us (24-26 September) and we have lined up a selection of ales from the smaller and newer brewers within our area, most of which were not available at our last bash in February.

To kick off, we are likely to be the only place where you'll be able to sample all three of The Compass Breweries ales: Isis Pale Ale, Baltic Night Stout and The King's Shipment IPA from cask. I say this because brewer Mattias mentioned to me that the latest batch of his fabulous Isis Pale Ale would possibly not be ready for the end of the month. Luckily for us, I managed to cellar one the of the same a few weeks back, guaranteeing its inclusion in our festival.



Next up, we have two from Pete at the Thame Brewery: Mr Splodges Mild, which did appear in February (the first cask of Thame ale not to be served in The Cross Keys) but at 4%, quite pokey for a mild, so this is back at a toned down 3.6%-ish, plus we have "Hoppiness", a dry and hoppy bitter.



We didn't manage to get any ale in time from The Patriot Brewery at The Norman Knight, Whichford in February due to brewing gremlins having a go at Tim's kit. We did get to sample Missile and Longbow a couple of week's later though, and very good they were too. But for this festival, not only do we have the aforementioned Missile and Longbow, but we are completing the set with Tim's other two ales: Nelson and Bulldog - presumably a rare opportunity to compare all four ales from Patriot side by side.



Oxfordshire's newest brewery is Abingdon's Loose Cannon Brewery. Brewer Will has hit the local headlines recently by brewing two trial brews to go head-to-head for one of them to become Loose Cannon's first brew "Abingdon Bridge". The winner, which will be at our festival is "Mid brown in colour, full flavoured with a well rounded bitterness and a floral aftertaste. An easy drinking beer," so says Will.



Completing the line-up we have Prospect and Scholar from our local brewery, the Shotover Brewery, just up the road at Horspath. Yes, we had them both in February, we have Prospect on all the time and we now regularly stock Scholar, but they are very, very good.

Lots of sausages too from our local butcher with proper mash and home made onion gravy, entertainment from The Headington Hillbillies on the Saturday night and if we run out of the ales listed above, we have seasonal specials from Loddon, Vale, Hook Norton and West Berkshire lined up, and then of course, there's always Hooky Bitter - served in a handle, naturally.

Festival Page on The Cricketer's Website