Festival Description

N.B. These are the archived details for the 2018 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 29th Bent and Bongs Beer Bash, February 1 - February 3, 2018.


Dates and Times

Opening times for the 2018 festival are:

Thursday 1 February 6pm - 11pm £3
Friday 2 February 4pm - 11pm £6
Saturday 3 February 12pm - 9pm £6

If you haven't been for a couple of years, please note the change to the Saturday that you might not be used to.
We now open straight through from noon until 9pm. That's nine full hours of beers, bands, food and fun.


Venue

The venue for 2018 is again the Atherton Roller Rink.

Here's a map.

The closest railway station is Atherton, shown on the above map (top right corner). Walking time from the station to the Roller Rink is around 5 minutes. A good place to check the train times is at The Train Line.

To walk from the station to the Roller Rink, exit the station and walk down to the traffic lights. Turn right onto the main road and walk until you see Asda on the left. There's a car park immediately before Asda and the Roller Rink is down there. Google has an excellent little map of walking directions.

We believe that Northern Rail will be operating a rail replacement bus service on Saturday 3 February. We have been in touch with them and asked them to add additional capacity. If you want to know more, please contact Northern Rail directly.


Beers

That's right - for only the second time ever we'll be running a gin and Prosecco bar alongside the cask ale bar, alongside the foreign beer bar, alongside the cider bar.

That's a lot of bars and a lot of beers!

2018 will be the 29th year of the festival. Budding scientists will recognise 29 as the atomic number of copper (Cu).

It's the most obvious excuse in the world, isn't it, for trying some of those lovely copper coloured beers.


Music and Entertainment

All sessions will feature live entertainment.

The bands lined up for 2018 are:

Thursday night Brasswurst Bavarian Beer Band
The BBBB at the BBBB? Co-incidence? You decide? This authentic German oompah band will be bringing a distinctly Oktoberfest feel, with perhaps the occasional little twist.

Friday night The Three
A little bit of everything from the sixties to the now, The Three are sure to have the festival rocking.

Saturday 1pm to 4pm (ish) Cracked Flag
Would Saturday afternoon be complete without Cracked Flag? Nope! We thought not either. The jokes are terrible but the music is brilliant.

Saturday 4pm to 8pm (ish) Bambam and the Bobcats
A five piece party band performing all your favourite dancefloor hits. Another BBB at the BBBB. Co-incidence? You couldn't make this stuff up could you?



Food and Festival Fodder

All sessions will have a selection of wonderfully tasty festival fodder.

Super sizzling sausages.

Bury black puddings, roast beef sarnies and if you're really really lucky some home made hot pot.

It's the kind of food that sticks to your ribs and keeps you warm for days. Couple it with a few perfect pints and you are truly in food and drink heaven.


New To The Festival - Getting Your First Pint

When you walk into the Roller Rink main entrance, head a few steps to your left for admission. Here you also collect your souvenir glass and festival programme.

We can't stress this enough. Look after your glass. Your glass is your drinking vessel for the whole session and is yours to keep when you head for home. Treat your glass as your friend. Hold it carefully. Keep it out of harm's way. There are no spare glasses kept behind the bars so when you turn up for a drink you need your glass.

Remember! No glass = no beer!

Do not put your glass on the barrier around the rink itself. It's too easy for it to be knocked off and break. Remember! No glass = no beer!

The festival runs on a token system. To buy beer you must first buy tokens.

The token desk is at the end of the roller rink where you came in. If you can't find it, you've probably had enough!

Once you have your tokens you can head for your bar of choice and start sampling the wonderful beers. Please do not try to pay with cash. The bar staff cannot accept it, have no way to give you any change and will just send you to the token desk to buy tokens.

Remember! No tokens = no beer!

The food folks can accept both cash and tokens.

The rink is organised into 3 bars. The bar to the left has the real ales and ciders. The bar across the end has the draught lagers and fruit beers. And the bar to the right has the gin and Prosecco.

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

If you are coming with a group of friends, why not consider sponsoring the festival? It's fun, it's friendly, and if you can all get to the sponsors' hour on Thursday it's cheaper than paying on the door.

All the details for sponsoring the 2018 festival are available here.

Or click here if you only want the sponsorship form for 2018.

If you want to know more, email us at: sponsors@bentnbongs.com and we will get in touch.

Photography

Dave 'Photo God' Green, Richard Moore, Emily Carey and Steve Harrison did a brilliant job in 2017. If the winds are favourable we can only hope they will grace us again in 2017. What say chaps and chapesses???

We can always use more photographers. If you have some experience and are willing to donate a few hours to a good cause to photograph future festivals please get in touch. Remember ... ask not what your festival can do for you, but what you can do for your festival.


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

The festival has adopted 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 anyone who drank too much and is struggling to remember last year the 2017 beer festival details are saved here for posterity.

 

Please send all comments or suggestions to webmaster@bentnbongs.com