2026 Beckenham Beer Festival Round Up!

The 2026 Three Hounds & Beckenham RFC Beer Festival has come to an end and what a weekend it was. Here is our 2026 Beckenham Beer Festival round up with all the ups, downs and everything in-between.

First off, I personally want to say thank you to everyone who attended the beer festival, either as a drinker or a player in either the Friday Night Lights, Family Touch Rugby Tournament and the Competitive Touch Rugby Tournament. We has over 600 of you wonderful lot pass through the Festival over two day. It was fantastic seeing regulars from the Three Hounds, including some old regulars who travelled all the way down from Harrogate to the Rugby Club, alongside members of the Rugby Club, and new faces from the local area and beyond all mingling together over their love to support the local community, be it through beer or rugby. I am truly blown away with the number of attendees this year as it was up from the previous year and I can't thank everyone enough for the support.

Next up I want to say a massive thank you to all the volunteers who without them this festival wouldn't of happen in the first place. First up is the organising committee, Loki, Steve, Sharon, Purds, Louise & Rachel who worked tirelessly to ensure that the Three Hounds & Beckenham RFC Beer Festival was a success. I can't thank the beer slingers enough for ensuring your beer cups were full of the fantastic drinks, so a big massive thank you to Abi, James, Stu, Paul, Cam, Will, Eric, Caitlyn, Bianca & Steffie for all the hard work everyone put in over the two days. Finally, wihtout Drop Project, Crafty Blends, Southey Brewing and Anspach & Hobday and all these great companies lending extra dispensing equipment the festival wouldn't of been able to offer over 40 Beers & Ciders to the thirsty crowds.

All these elements meant that nearly 1800 pints were consumed over two days, with Smoko from Drop Project, Silent Brew & Three Hounds on Cask selling out first. Fan favourite and award-winning Pendulum by Three Hounds not only selling out on Keg first, but when another keg of Pendulum was put back on late afternoon Saturday, 52 pints were poured in 45 minutes. As a beer I developed and created myself, seeing the love for Pendulum is really bloody cool. When is comes to Cider, the fruit based Ciders seemed to be fan favourites with nearly all the Fruited Ciders selling out over the two days. If you missed out and want to see the full list of what was being poured over the Beer Festival then we recommend reading the 2026 Beckenham Beer Festival Beer List.

Like with any young beer festival there is always things that need improving to ensure that each year the festival is bigger and better and that everyone has a better experience. This year we split the Keg and Cask Bar up as last year we found that having all beers together caused a longer waiting time for attendees to get their drinks than we liked, especially when people also want to watch the Rugby games going on the pitch outside the Club House. This year we had the Keg Bar in the main hall with the Cask, joined by the Cider, in the same place as last year. This drastically dropped the waiting time for getting drinks into glasses. Going forward we will continue this layout but add better signage to indicate which bar is which, hopefully making it easier for people to get the beer they are after. We are also looking into building a dedicated 6-8 Tap Portable Beer Wall for next years festival. The main reason for this is, even though we are extremely grateful for the extra dispensing equipment from breweries, the portable two tap machines are bulky, and when lined up on a table with the beer lines all over the place the bar looks messy, on the odd occasion those portable two tap machines can be very temperamental. We had one this year that meant two of the keg ciders were unable to be sold at all over the weekend. Little things like these can be improved which then hopefully makes your experience at the Three Hounds & Beckenham RFC Beer Festival even more enjoyable year on year. We now have 50ish weeks before the next Three Hounds & Beckenham RFC Beer Festival and we have many more ideas to improve the experience for everyone from attendees to the volunteers.

I think I've waffled on enough, but from the bottom of my heart I want to say thank you to everyone involved in this year Beer Festival. All the money raised from this festival goes to Beckenham Rugby Club to help continue the fantastic work BRFC does supporting grassroots sports and the local community. The rugby season might be over but every little helps and the Three Hounds & Beckenham RFC Beer Festival did just that, with the money raised this year going towards essential pitch improvements. More information on one of the fundraising campaigns can be found here. I can't wait to do this all over again next year, to continue to support my local rugby club, the community and neighbourhood I call home.

Thank you to everyone once again, events like this reminds me why I do what I do. Keep being awesome and see you all soon for a beer.

Much love,

Matt