ELY CAMRA celebrated its most successful beer festival ever at the weekend. More than 1,200 people visited the festival, now in its seventh year, and the organisers completely sold out of beer, an hour and a half before the scheduled end of the event. Org

ELY CAMRA celebrated its most successful beer festival ever at the weekend.

More than 1,200 people visited the festival, now in its seventh year, and the organisers completely sold out of beer, an hour and a half before the scheduled end of the event.

Organiser Phil Wignall said: "We haven't had the final figures back yet but I think this has been our most successful year. The sheer number of people through the door was amazing and to sell all 53 barrels of beer - and 15 barrels of cider - is incredible."

The festival also supported CAMRA's LocAle initiative, promoting beers brewed within a 35-mile radius of Ely.

Phil's wife Nicola, who helped at the festival, said: "It went very well and it was a great success. The feedback we had was very positive - everybody loved the new venue at the football club too. We are already making plans for next year."

She continued; "We were busy from the moment we opened the doors. We expected to start of slowly but it was non-stop all the time. We even had people come back on Saturday who had been on Friday. One gentleman even flew over from Dublin, just to come to our festival."

As well as planning for next year's summer festival, Phil is trying to gather support for a smaller, winter event.

INFO: For more information visit www.elycamra.org.uk.

4822HD0609: From left to right are: Mike Czarnobaj, Neil Lewis, Phil Wignall and Alison Chaplin.

Photo: HELEN DRAKE.