Organisers of Dorchester Beerex 2020, West Dorset Campaign For Real Ale (CAMRA) in partnership with Casterbridge Rotary club are extremely proud to announce this year’s grand total will be in excess of 19.5K by far the most money the festival has ever made. Profits will be divided up between various good causes with Dorset Mind a local mental health charity being the main benefactor and raffle money of around 2.6K going to the Dorchester Youth and Community Centre.
This amazing total not possible without sponsorship and customer support see’s Dorchester Beerex smash through the 200K barrier of funds raised to date to around 208K.
The festivals main sponsor was Palmers brewery of Bridport while individual companies sponsored all the barrels and donated raffle prizes of some that were auctioned. The entertainment was provided by Jack Daniels and Benny Wain on Friday night and the Leggomen, Saturday night with sponsorship from Cummings Accountants.
The festival is run over the weekend by around 60 volunteers all overseen by the Beerex committee of whom Rotary’s Les Fry was this year’s chairman. On hearing of the festivals outstanding success and giving praise for the volunteers Les said” This is a fantastic result, well done everyone. I have really enjoyed being part of this very well organised and slick festival; it is a credit to all your hard work, team work and commitment to make this happen every year. Your energy and motivation to make this happen each year for the benefit of beer (and Cider) drinkers is commendable with the wider community being the real winners.” He went on to thank everyone for their hard work in making the 2020 festival such a success including all the sponsorship.
Dorset brewers did extremely well in the “Beer of the Festival” vote, which is a public vote with first place being taken jointly by Dorchester brewery Copper St with their strong Dorchester Imperial Stout and the Cerne Abbas brewery with their Gurt Coconuts Rum stout. Infact 4 out of the top 5 were Dorset brewers. Rich Gabe of West Dorset CAMRA who sources the beers for the festival said” I am really pleased that out of 84 beers that were eligible for a vote Dorset brewers shone through, they clearly brew some of the U.K’s finest beer” Around 50% of the breweries that were being exhibited had never been seen in Dorchester before and visitors got to sample many different styles.
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