A very British summer of shuffleboard and craft beer

15th oktober 2021SHUFL News

SHUFL. goes where the beer flows and it’s certainly been a long, sweet – and sometimes soggy – British summer of shuffleboard and craft beer festivals.  The SHUFL. UK team has been spreading some shuffleboard love at no less than five of the best We are Beer  Craft Beer Festivals, travelling the length of the country from Bristol to Edinburgh, stopping off in London, Manchester and Birmingham along the way.

We made so many friends along the way, check out our best bits here…

Depot Mayfield, Manchester

It all started back in July in Manchester in an old train station with an industrial warehouse vibe, where we couldn’t get enough of the classic Northern fare – pie and gravy – we can highly recommend Great North Pie Co!

Our SHUFL. tables were next to a silent disco from the award-winning alcohol-free brewers at Big Drop.  The constant queues and great atmosphere meant our tables got plenty of attention.

Harbourside, Bristol

Probably the busiest festival of them all, Bristol ran over three days and the weather was amazing, which meant everyone was in high spirits and the pucks were flying.

Special mention to the team at Starward Whisky, an Australian whisky distilled in Melbourne, the foodie capital of Oz.  Your whisky and our SHUFL. tables were made for each other!

We also discovered another perfect pairing: Pulled Pork Doughnuts.  These tasty treats were a big hit with hungry shuffleboarders, who love to snack and slide!

Bristol, you loved our SHUFL. t-shirts and branded merch!  We went on to sell our t-shirts at subsequent festivals and ‘Puck you Covid’ was a particular hit!

Tobacco Docks, London

We took no less than four SHUFL. tables to the Big Smoke to help ease the queues.  Two were in the Salt Vault with the popular Salt Brewery, where they were queueing out of the door to get a drink and play some shuffleboard to the beat of the dance music.

In the main outdoor area, there was a more chilled daytime vibe for our other two tables and we had the best neighbours: UnBarred Brewery, a Vegan beer brand brewed in Brighton, who had constant queues going on.  Their customers would grab a beer and wonder on over for a game on the SHUFL. table and then come back for more beer and shuffleboard later. We call that a Win Win!

Edinburgh Corn Exchange

In Edinburgh it was all about …the rain.  While the locals seemed pretty non-plussed by the torrents, all the breweries were struggling with very wet feet!

SHUFL. brand ambassador Alex sums it up: “Socks were like gold dust! But we were all in the same boat – (if only!) – so it made for a great bonding experience!”

As you’d expect from the Brits, the rain didn’t manage to put a dampener on proceedings, in fact it only added to the experience with the mist and fog shrouding the famous Edinburgh architecture around the venue and lending proceedings an ethereal effect!

Tea Works, Digbeth, Birmingham

The Central Beer Festival in Birmingham rounded off our summer of beer festivals and it didn’t disappoint. It proved so popular that hotels were booked up across the region right up to Coventry and hundreds ended up sleeping on local sofas and in the festival’s staff tent on hammocks and bean bags!!!

High fives to one very keen shuffleboard player, who attended all three of the Birmingham sessions and did an incredible job at sharing the shuffleboard love with his family and friends: first, by bringing his father-in-law, then his mum and father-in-law, and finally, his mates.  Now, that’s committing to the playfield, right there!

The food vendors did a roaring trade as the festival site was a shop-free zone – our go-to was the gluten free burger bar.

At one point though, all of the vendors had to go old school and accept cash-only payments because the card system went down, which goes to show it always pays to carry some cash even in these contactless times.

We’ll let SHUFL. Partner Development Executive Joey have the last word:

“I had a great time, enjoyed meeting everyone and reconnecting with people again after such a long time not being allowed to. It was weird because you could feel that everyone was just really happy to be free again, for the first time in ages.”

Our sentiments exactly!

SHUFL. Shoutouts:

A huge thank you to Dan and Joey’s sister, who helped in Bristol and London when the festivals were super busy and the SHUFL. team needed extra pairs of hands!

Kate from North Brewery, Leeds also gets a special mention for attending every festival and making all the staff a Bloody Mary every Saturday morning to keep them going. Outstanding work!

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