Nourish Festival

Visitors to the Nourish festival

A lovely day at the newly established Nourish Festival in Bovey Tracey. Fine weather always helps and this event was certainly blessed in that respect but there was also some good organisation and some wonderful local food and drink to enjoy.

Nourish was professional, good branding giving the event an identity, plus it seemed some strong pre-event marketing had taken place. The day was very busy with lots of people all keen to engage with traders. Selling bottled beer you get used to a slow start to the day - beer does not appeal to the mind set early in the day and its also heavy to carry around. However Nourish was different, it began at 10am and we were very quickly busy.

We sampled two great beers in Tavy Ideal Pale Ale and Dorset Brewing Co Durdle Door. Two different styles, the IPA is brewed with cascade hops and is rich in citrus grapefruit flavours with a good bitter finish. Durdle Door is much fatter on the palate, more biscuit and sweeter.  At events we've found it pays to sample your best beers or those that fit with the local market. The Tavy IPA was one of the most local beers to Bovey and very quickly sold out, a nice refreshing beer it was perfect for the hot day.

Craft Bottle Beer stand at Nourish 

There was also a great deal of interest in the Hunters Brewery beers we had on offer. Following on so soon from the BBC's programme "The Fixer" with Alex Politzzi, lots of people were aware of it with many keen to try the Royal Hunt alongside the Devon Dreamer, the two beers that Hunters had put forward for development. 

These craft/food festivals are springing up in different towns now. They are great places for traders to bring their wares to market and trade in the high street without the added cost burdens of a premises. Its' not always fun, there is a lot of hard work and wet windy weather can really ruin a day, but all told I'm very much in favour of more of these events. They are the fledgling ground of small businesses, many will not progress but for some its a good place to test your offer, do the ground work for building a brand and developing early signs of a consumer franchise for your products.

From the consumers perspective they also provide a wide variety of choice, offering brands and gifts you cannot buy in shops. Its the chance to buy something a little different. They are certainly not always the cheapest places to visit with lots of premium items on offer but there are some real gems of gifts waiting to be discovered.