Death or glory at the Marlow dragon boat regatta: Sunday 13 June 2010!!!

After colossal back-to-back victories at Oakley Park in 2008 and 2009, the Otters are once again taking to their natural habitat (no, not the pub) in search of glory on the stretch of river that is fast becoming our nemesis - Marlow.

Everything you'll ever need to know about the Marlow Regatta can be found here, at the Dragons Alive website: Dragons Alive Regatta at The Marlow Town Regatta & Festival [LINK]

It's a cracking day out, usually hot as hell with brilliant sunshine, and a lovely festival atmosphere to boot (on account of it being a festival and a regatta - clue in the title ;).

So if you fancy living the dream and paddling the Otters to their maiden Marlow victory, you need to let me or Kayte know by Thursday 29 April LATEST. It's £32 all in for boat, kit, entry fee, gazebo and helm. As ever, you can share a berth with someone to split the cost.

Let's face it. Do you have a better way to burn off 40 pints of Otter homebrew!?!

Go the Otters!

Thank you!

Huge thanks to the brewers, designers, drinkers and spectators who helped make the second annual Chertsey St George's Beer Challenge such a success. Special thanks go out to Hugo for yet another diligent and sparkling turn as our judge, and Tony for gifting us the function room at the Crown for the day. He's apparently quite a nice bloke really.

There were 18 beers entered by 16 brewers, all of whom put a fabulous amount of time and effort into their entries. At the current rate of growth, in 20 years the beer challenge will feature more than a million brewers and we will have collectively caused the collapse of conglomerate brewing in the UK. Reach for the stars...

The beers ranged from "skunky" to "excellent", and their labels from "filthy" to "inspired". As for the names, anyone who doesn't spend the rest of the week humming "I can't believe it's not butter beer" clearly wasn't in the room.

I'll be posting the results, etc., in more detail shortly, but in the meantime here's a list of the winners, FYI. If you have any photographs of the day, can you email me asap and I'll set up a Flickr stream for your collective delectation and pleasure.

Best beer: Romp of Runnymede; brewer: Big Gay Al
Best name: I can't believe it's not butter beer; brewer: Kayte and a cast of a thousand munchkins
Best label: Yellow and Blue; brewer: Anna R and the Swedish Dream Team

Until the next time, remember...

Any idiot can drink a beer. It takes a legend to make one.

Thank you!

Huge thanks to the brewers, designers, drinkers and spectators who helped make the second annual Chertsey St George's Beer Challenge such a success. Special thanks go out to Hugo for yet another diligent and sparkling turn as our judge, and Tony for gifting us the function room at the Crown for the day. He's apparently quite a nice bloke really.

There were 18 beers entered by 16 brewers, all of whom put a fabulous amount of time and effort into their entries. At the current rate of growth, in 18 years the beer challenge will feature more than a million brewers and we will have collectively caused the collapse of conglomerate brewing in the UK. Reach for the stars...

The beers ranged from "skunky" to "excellent", and their labels from "filthy" to "inspired". As for the names, anyone who doesn't spend the rest of the week humming "I can't believe it's not butter beer" clearly wasn't in the room.

I'll be posting the results, etc., in more detail shortly, but in the meantime here's a list of the winners, FYI. If you have any photographs of the day, can you email me asap and I'll set up a Flickr stream for your collective delectation and pleasure.

Best beer: Romp of Runnymede; brewer: Big Gay Al
Best name: I can't believe it's not butter beer; brewer: Kayte and a cast of a thousand munchkins
Best label: Yellow and Blue; brewer Anna R and the Swedish Dream Team

Until the next time, remember...

Any idiot can drink a beer. It takes a legend to make one.

THE FINAL: Sunday, 25 April, 2 - 5pm

The final countdown has begun. The moment of truth is imminent. A massive 21 brewers have entered the Chertsey St George's Beer Challenge, pouring their heart, soul and cheeky magic ingredients into lovingly crafted ales. Awesome.

Entry details, rules and regulations all detailed below, but if you're entering a beer, here are the key things you need to know:

• Registration for your beer entry is from 130pm on competition day.
• You will need your £5 entry fee.
  
• You will need three unlabelled bottles for the blind tasting.
• You will need one labelled bottle for the label competition.
• You will need to be able to explain your beer's name and the creative journey that led to your label. Short and sweet is fine!
  

In addition to the three Beer Challenge titles - Best Beer, Best Label, Best Name - there will be some additional on-the-day challenges which everyone can get involved in. These include beer tasting, dwyle flunking, eskimo longjump, yards of ale and boatraces.

Suggestions for additional activities welcome!

Any idiot can drink a beer. It takes a legend to make one.

SAVE THE DATE! Chertsey St George's Beer Challenge - THE FINAL - Sunday 25 April

Save the date and be there for the epic Chertsey St George's Beer Challenge Final. We're currently looking at a 2pm kick off for the event, so no need for babysitters. Kids, friends, relatives, random people pulled in off the street, ALL WELCOME.

We currently have 20 competitors in the brewing comp, so we're more than double the size of last year. Great effort by all concerned!

In addition to the three Beer Challenge titles - Best Beer, Best Label, Best Name - there will be some additional on-the-day challenges which everyone can get involved in. Nothing heavy - just fun stuff.

More details as we have them!


Any idiot can drink a beer. It takes a legend to make one.

WARNING: Brewing deadline fast approaching!!!

A friendly warning, mind. If you want to have a beer ready for 25 April, you pretty much have to have to get it under way this weekend (27, 28 March) latest. You need a week for your initial fermentation and probably 3 weeks in the bottle to ensure it clears in time.

That said, last year's winner (Willingale's Willing Ale) was brewed super-late and delivered to the judge still cloudy, so you never can tell!

Bottles!

Right, next up is bottles. Rather than spend a bleedin' fortune on these, I've negotiated with the landlords of local hostelries, chiefly the Crown, to go rummaging in their bins and recycle suitable glassware for your awesome brews. Let me know if you'd like any. First come, first served. (Likely to be 500ml rather than pints, but it shouldn't affect the flavour ;)