<p></p><p>Despite appalling weather during the set up of the increasingly popular outdoor festival in a giant marquee by the River Thames conditions improved considerably by opening time. Thus, the pubs and non real ale bars of Reading were much quieter than usual over the weekend of the May bank holiday as customers opted to a drop of the "real stuff" instead. Over 6,200 customers consumed 28,000 pints of real ale, 2,000 pints of cider and perry and 1,000 bottles of European bottled beer.</p><p>The organisers were delighted with the turnout which was 50% up on the previous year.</p><p> Due to the fact that a third of the original beer delivered was consumed on the opening night contingency plans were brought into operation to ensure a continuous choice of beer throughout the rest of the festival. This resulted in a further 4 dray loads of beer arriving on the Friday, thereby avoiding a repeat of last year when the barrels were drained dry early on the Saturday evening.</p><p>The festival hosted the SIBA south east region awards on the Friday, showcasing some of the region?s finest ales. ?Hophead? from the Dark Star brewery in Sussex was judged Supreme Champion, while category winners were beers from Dark Star (3), West Berkshire (2), Ballards and Butts breweries.</p><p>The awards co-ordinator, Melissa Reed, said ?the awards day was a great success and both brewers and judges went home happy.?</p><p>The national APPLE cider and perry awards were also held during the festival for the first time. The winners were judged to be Gwatkins Yarlington Mill cider and Minchews Blakeney Red perry.</p><p>Campaigning was a great success with 64 new CAMRA members recruited and 1,000 people signing the full pint pledge, a stance supported by the Reading Evening Post with the publication of a positive article after the event.</p>