Punters enjoy a tipple at the Darlington CAMRA Beer Festival
The CAMRA Beer Festival kicked off on Friday (February 21) for a weekend of beer, cider, and ale at the Hopetown railway museum for the first time since pre-Covid.
The event featured craft stalls and food stalls alongside a range of traditional ales for visitors to try, with the venue reaching maximum capacity at 2.45pm on Saturday.
Pictures show cheersing punters enjoying a tipple at the museum, while crowds queued at the bar to get their hands on some of the speciality beers on offer.
However, it seemed punters simply couldn’t get enough as CAMRA announced on Saturday afternoon that the event had run out of beer.
Organisers were forced to scrap the final day of its weekend-long event, saying it had sold all its booze, including extra backup stock.
They added it “absolutely underestimated” the amount of people who would attend, and were “overwhelmed by the massive support”.
Today (Sunday, February 23), CAMRA Darlington said to run out of all beer “due to a high volume of support is obviously regrettable”.
A statement posted online said: “Again, we will learn from this event and come back bigger and better. Thanks for your support and kind words. Our volunteers do read them.”
As previously reported, the beer festival, which was formerly held at the Darlington Arts Centre before its closure, returned yesterday for the first time since pre-2020.
Its Sunday edition was due to feature a charity quiz on Sunday afternoon, hosted at 4.30pm by Dave of Crafty’s Quiz fame before the event was cancelled.
A full post online on Saturday said: “Thank you so much to everyone who supported this. We absolutely underestimated the numbers that would come! We thank you!
“As we quickly run out of beer, we want to say sorry to those who may have made plans. We will learn from this and go bigger next time!
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A later post added: “We will not be open Sunday. We have sold all our beer, including our backup beer. I know some people will be disappointed, and we are too.
“We are volunteers, who love this and we are overwhelmed by the massive support. We will learn from this. Thanks so much! We will be back in 2026.”