Tending Bar at the Cardiff University Ale and Cider Festival

This coming Thursday, I’ll be bunking off a seminar and taking a long train journey down to Cardiff for the Real Ale and Cider Society’s 17th Annual Festival. It’s the largest student festival in Britain. There should be about 50 ales and 50 ciders – I’m told there is a list, but apparently it’s being kept Top Secret until the festival begins – 5 types of mead and 7 types of wine. My mouth is watering at the very thought.

Despite this being my fourth year at the festival, I have never visited as a customer. I’ve always worked behind the bar, recommending my favourite brews, serving up the ale with a flourish and partaking liberally in the quiet moments. A certain degree of familiarity with the different types of ale is a most desirable characteristic, and so long as you don’t drink more that you serve, the few genuinely sober people about are quite forgiving.

On my first year, I went home for the festival weekend, and only worked on the Thursday – how little I knew back then! Still, I returned to my halls addled enough to forget to shut the shower door, and completely drenched my ensuite – so evidently it was not time wasted.

The second year was a bit of a blow out, I admit. I managed to time myself so perfectly on the Thursday that the last thing I remember is last orders. And then, as usual, I woke up in bed, in my pyjamas, to find it was the next morning. My survival instincts often astonish me like that.

The festival that year was a sell out success, so there wasn’t the same chance to drink myself under the table as there was on the Thursday night – the paying customers had it all, the greedy beggars! I blame the undercover policemen, who prowled around quietly on the first night and came back to drink on day two in a massive group. But my memories are good. Being the most beardy member of the society at that point, I was quite identifiable, and got a lot of hugs. There was a lovely moment when I was listening to a band I’d helped book – who were fantastic – with a pint of ale in my right hand and my left around a rather pretty girl, and I thought how jealous and disbelieving my sixteen year old self would have been if he could have seen me now. I felt cool, which, God knows, doesn’t happen often enough. Unfortunately, I blew it almost immediately by reaching that plateau of drunkenness where I can dance completely unselfconsciously. The last band started off by covering Staying Alive, and got cheesier by the minute. At no other point have I, or would I EVER, dance to Gay Bar.

But all too soon the beer and cider had vanished down a thousand thirsty throats, and it was all over save for taking everything down the next morning, and the massive fried breakfast that inevitably follows.

The next year was not quite so exuberant, as I had begun to develop an (utterly unjustified) reputation about the committee, and they refused to give me any mead after nine o’clock. Spoilsports. There was a rather fun moment in the clearing up, where my housemate lent her head against my arm and said ‘Carry me home.’ She was out of the Great Hall and halfway out of the building before she managed to convince me it was a joke. What the security guards must have thought, I don’t know.

Surprisingly, considering I hadn’t drunk myself into complete insensibility, that morning was the worst hangover I’ve ever had at the festival. I stumbled into work at 3pm in my day-old festival t-shirt and oldest jeans, looking like hell and smelling of stale beer. Yet to my astonishment and delight, I pulled shortly after last orders, and turned up to the fried breakfast on Saturday with a big cheesy grin on my face that didn’t fade for a week afterwards.

I doubt I’m going to get that lucky again. But whatever happens, I’m going to have two nights of good music, cracking cider and wonderful ale, among some lovely people who I haven’t seen for over half a year, and that’s more than worth the journey.

The Cardiff University Real Ale and Cider Society Festival is open from 2pm to Midnight on the 21st and 22nd of February. Entry is £3 with a commemorative pint glass.