THE Island’s first CAMRA beer festival last week would doubtless have found favour with the first UK CAMRA festival’s Best Beer award winner.
Manxman Timothy Atkinson, a former King William’s College pupil, was chief brewer with T.D. Ridley’s at Hartford End in Essex, when he won the award at the CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) festival at Crystal Palace, London, back in the 1970s.
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Mr Atkinson died five years ago, but his widow Angela said her husband would have been pleased to see the success of CAMRA’s first island festival.
‘He won the award at the very first one they did at Crystal Palace,’ she said. ‘The brewery had been going for over 100 years after being established by the owner’s grandfather, but the owner didn’t know a lot about brewing, so someone recommended Timothy to him.
‘We moved there in 1968 from Burton on Trent, where Timothy had served an apprenticeship with Bass [Brewery].’
Mrs Atkinson said the award was made after drinkers at the beer festival voted for their favourite tipple and his topped the poll.
Though she no longer has the certificate he received, Mrs Atkinson said she did still have a gold medal he had been presented with in 1983 from the International Brewing, Bottling and Allied Trades Exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham.
‘He was proud of that one because it was a mark of approval by the public as well as his peers,’ Mrs Atkinson said.
Ridley’s brewery was bought by Greene King in 2005, but the Ridley family has since started brewing again.
Commenting on the recent beer festival at the Masonic Hall in Douglas, Mrs Atkinson said: ‘I’m not really a beer drinker myself. Timothy would certainly have gone down there to see who he knew and he would have been very interested.’