Festival Description

N.B. These are the archived details for the 2020 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 31st Bent and Bongs Beer Bash, February 6 - 8, 2020.


Dates and Times

Opening times for the 2020 festival are:

Thursday 6 February 6pm - 11pm £3
Friday 7 February 4pm - 11pm £6
Saturday 8 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 2020 is the Atherton Roller Rink.

Here's a map.

By rail to Atherton station:
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. The Roller Rink is just before Asda.

By V2 bus to Atherton:
You should get off at the Co-op stop on Market St. From there it's only a short walk to the Roller Rink.
Catch the return V2 from the Mealhouse Ln stop.


Beers

For 2020 we will be expanding Craft Corner; hoping to go to around 15 wonderful craft beers, many of which are brewed locally.

Plus the main cask ale bar, the foreign beer bar, the cider bar, and the gin and Prosecco bars.

If you can't find something you like you must be exceptionally hard to please.


Music and Entertainment

All sessions will feature live entertainment.

The bands lined up for 2020 are:

Thursday night The Hats
Apparently they wear hats and play stuff.

Friday night The Three
A little bit of everything from the sixties to the now, The Three will have Friday night rocking and rolling.

Saturday 1pm to 4pm (ish) Big Red and the Grinners
Sometimes country, sometimes western ... twists on songs you'll immediately recognise.

Saturday 4pm to 8pm (ish) Gin Pit
Back again from last year the Gin Pit Rock Band will have the place rocking with covers of The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, AC/DC, and many more ...



Food and Festival Fodder

Repeat after me: It's yummy, yummy, in your tummy.

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

The only thing better than a drink from one of the bars is a drink from one of the bars with something tasty to eat, and we'll have just the thing:

Assorted flavours of super sizzling sausages

Bury black puddings

Roast beef sandwiches

And if you're really really lucky some home made hot pot.



New To The Festival - Getting Your First Pint

Come in through the main doors, pay your tithe and 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. A broken glass means no glass. 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, 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 and will just send you to the token desk to buy tokens.

Remember! No tokens = no beer!

New for 2020 - We are trialling card payments for token purchases.

The food folks can accept cash and tokens.

The rink is organised into 6 bars:

- Ciders and Perrys
- Real Ales
- Craft Corner
- Belgium, Foreign, and Fruit Beers
- 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

It's a bit late but if you're really keen email us at: sponsors@bentnbongs.com and we'll see what we can do.

Photography

Dave 'Photo God' Green and Steve Harrison did a brilliant job in 2019. We'll be asking very nicely to see if we can get them back again for 2020. 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 run an email list so that we can keep you informed about future festivals.

If you want to get on the list, the opt-in is here: Opt-in to the Bent and Bongs Email List


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.

If you want a bit of history, or simply have nothing better to do right now and are itching to click something the 2019 beer festival details are saved here for posterity.

 

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