Real ale and music lovers have flocked in their thousands to the 10th annual St Austell Brewery Celtic Beer Festival.

More than 3,000 people from across the South West gathered at St Austell Brewery on Saturday (November 29) to sample some of the 120-plus beers on offer and party throughout the day and evening to the sounds of five live bands – raising thousands of pounds for local charities in the process.

St Austell Brewery head brewer Roger Ryman said: “We’re delighted with the amount of people that came along and created such a fantastic atmosphere to help celebrate the beer festival’s 10th birthday.

“I’d like to thank everyone who gave up their time to help make the event such a huge success and to everyone that turned up to help raise money for charity.”

The range of special beers created for the festival by Roger and the brewing team proved to be among the most popular ales on offer and Tribute Extra– recently launched by St Austell Brewery as a one off ale for the Christmas season– was the best selling beer on the day.

Doors to the festival opened at 11am on Saturday and the huge popularity of the event meant that by midday it had already reached capacity, with door staff operating a ‘one out – one in’ policy for the rest of the day and evening.

All the money raised from the event will go to local charities in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset through the St Austell Brewery Charitable Trust.