News: March 2010

The next JD Wetherspoon Real Ale Festival, scheduled for 7–25 April, will be headlined by four beers specially brewed in the UK by foreign brewers.

Greg Hall of Chicago’s Goose Island has been brewing his Honker’s Ale at Shepherd Neame in Kent, and Richard Chennels of South Africa’s Zululand brewery has been working on his Zulu Blonde at Marston’s in Burton-on-Trent.

They join Garrett Marrero of Hawaii’s Maui Brewing and Virginie Harzé of Belgium’s Val-Dieu, who have been replicating their beers at Banks’s and Everards.

Wetherspoon’s festival will feature up to 50 ales, including imported beers, six ‘forgotten favourites’ – discontinued beers that brewers are reviving specifically for the occasion – and some exclusive new brews.