James Vukmirovic speaks to Charlotte Coxon about the setup of the Wolverhampton Beer Festival and how she feels about Banks's Brewery being involved for the last time
00:00Hello and welcome to the Wolverhampton Art Centre. Over the next few days it will be the setting for the Wolverhampton Beer Festival.
00:07There are a fine range of beers, ciders and other assorted drinks.
00:14And over Thursday, Friday and Saturday there will be a hive of activity with hundreds of people coming in to indulge themselves in some of the fine drinks.
00:22One of the drinks has been held by the organiser Charlotte Coxon. This never gets old, does it?
00:29No, no. I mean we are one of the longest running festivals in the country by camera. So that's good.
00:38What do you think the enduring appeal is in the warm-out to do festivals?
00:42I don't know. I think it's possibly because we don't have many other hubs and we don't have Wolverhampton itself doing festivals.
00:51Whereas I think Canada has been very successful in other parts of the country and they've had a lot more sort of clubs and these small counties doing it.
01:00So I think we are one of the, you know, the only big festivals. Plus we have a lot of our people who come and have been coming for four and five years regularly.
01:09Yeah. And we're in Setup right now. So what's going on at the moment?
01:13Right. Well, for the last two days obviously we've been getting the casks up because we tried to get them all up by Monday afternoon because obviously being real ale they need time to settle.
01:23So, and the cooling. And we're now setting off getting the tombola at this year for our charity which is the Good Shepherd.
01:32The tombola's been set up and we'll have a camera shot. We're sorting out the glasses and really it's just sort of tidying round and getting as much as we can sorted ready for tomorrow.
01:42And with everyone obviously volunteering their time for free. Absolutely, yes. Or volunteers. Or volunteers, yes.
01:47Right. It would be silly of me to ask what you think the most popular beer is going to be because it's the one that comes from the places of the road.
01:54But how important is it to have the Sesquicentennial IPA as part of the festival?
01:59I think, I mean, first of all I would say Banksy's has always supported our festival in different ways.
02:04And certainly surviving. But this is the last Banksy's group at the Film Banksy's and it's the one I've group that's only here at the festival.
02:13So, you know, I just think it's great that we can be here.
02:17It's going to be an emotional moment as well when you turn the tap and you realise there's nothing coming out and you realise you've just done the last one.
02:22Yes, absolutely. I think it'll go quite well.
02:26But in general, it's just nice to be able to come back in in this setting as well and put on festivals like this.
02:31Yes, I mean, it's great. The Arts Centre here is lovely. The staff are really brilliant and supportive.
02:36And it's not far out of town. There's a bus or you can walk out.
02:40And it's just lovely. The outside is a marquee and that's where we have the music.
02:45We have music Friday evening and through Saturday as well.
02:48And if people want to come down, how much tickets and what do they get for their money?
02:51Right. So it's £5 in and you get your glass. Yep. So you get glass, you get a festival programme.
03:00You can either buy beer tokens or you can go contact us at the bar so you don't need that.
03:09Get yourself down here over the weekend. There's lots of good beers.
03:12And try to be the person who has the last pint of boxes.
03:16Any questions.
03:18See you on the next day.
03:20We'll have a lovely research on the next day.
