Dickinson College Humanities Program in Norwich

After volunteering at Dragon Hall on Friday night, I believed I was equipped with what I needed to know for Saturday. Unlike Friday, when I had to stay from 5 o’clock to midnight for preparation, the evening session (the only session on Friday), and clean up, Saturday was going to be a lot longer though. I had to be there at 11:30 in the morning and I wouldn’t be let out until midnight that night. There were both and afternoon and evening session this day. Also, the work I did was a lot different than the work I did on Friday night.

            I was placed at one of the two bars. I would have to dispense the beer from the casks and collect the tokens from the costumers. Although this may seem easy, and although it proved to be less difficult than I worried it would be, at the beginning I was very worried. All of the volunteers that were working with me that afternoon had done this work the night before and I was very nervous about messing up. However, there were some things that made my life easier behind the bar.

            Firstly, all the glasses were marked. Along with the image and logo of Dragon Hall, there were measurement marks for a third of a pint, a half a pint, and a full pint. The committee that ran the festival had decided before that a third of a pint should not be sold, so that mark was irrelevant. But it is extremely important to pour the correct amount of beer into your costumer’s glass. I was warned many times that there is a committee that goes to pubs and beer festivals to make sure that the pouring was accurate and that the buyer was getting what he paid for. With the marks this was something that should not have made me worry, but I poured a little past the lines every time just to assure myself that I wasn’t going to rip anyone off. Secondly, all the beers were sold at intervals of 20p. Each token was worth 20p as well. On the casks there were labels with the names of the beer, the brewery that created it, the alcohol content, and the price and token amount for either a half or full pint. All I had to do was look at the token amount and ask for it, not having to deal with money or change. Thirdly, at the bar I was working at, there were two experienced beer festival volunteers who made sure everything was working smoothly. I made one mistake that thankfully was not a major issue, but it could have been.

            The beers being served at these CAMRA festivals all have sediment that lies at the bottom of the cask. That means that after the cask is transported or put into its location at the bar the cask must rest for a certain amount of time in order to let the sediments settle back down under the liquid. This also means that after tipping a cask, which is what you do when the beer is running low and you need to heighten the rear of the cask to increase the flow of liquid to the nozzle in the front, you have to be extremely careful. Only experienced people were able to touch these casks in order to tip them because the adjustments had to be done slowly and accurately. Sudden movements could shake the sediments afloat. The cask would then have to sit, possibly for hours, before the beer was ready to serve again. So at a festival, where beer is needed and needed fast, this would be a terrible problem. I did almost cause this to happen when I was trying to be helpful. One of the experienced volunteers, Andrea, was tipping a cask that was running low, and I decided that she needed a hand, so I started to push the rear of the cask upwards. I was quickly scorned and I let go, and she had a tight enough grip on the cask to make sure that it didn’t fall back down when I let go. I never touched the cask again, except for the nozzle, which I was allowed to touch. Although I was yelled at for my mistake, the group of volunteers behind the bar was supportive. There were some volunteers my age, and a couple older volunteers. As long as we listened to what the older, usually more knowledgeable, ones ordered and as long as we were productive and putting in effort, us “virgins” (as we were called once early on Friday because of our lack of experience working at beer festivals) were treated respectfully, and eventually even friendly.

            The festival as a whole ran into problems by the end of the afternoon, before the night session. We were actually running out of beer. No one had expected Friday night to be such a success and the men and women who organized the event did not order enough beer from the breweries. By the early hours of the night session we had to cross off beers on the beer menu that was offered to costumers. One by one the beers dropped off and the selection began to dwindle. My bar literally sold out of beer Saturday night and had to resort to selling the few options of bottled beer that were available. These bottled beers were from the same breweries that provided the casks of beer but we far less popular because they were more expensive and they had an altered taste because of their packaging. A lot of costumers were very disappointed and I was sympathetic to them. They came to a beer festival expecting abundance of beer to choose from, to taste, to consider, and to discover, but for those who came later on in the evening that was impossible to do. I felt horrible turning people away because we didn’t have any of the beer they were interested in having. It wasn’t like I had a choice though.

            There was a little bit more cleaning up to do Saturday night than there was on Friday. I had to remove the trays that were placed on the floor directly under the nozzles. These were meant to collect all the drippings from the casks. I collected random glasses that were left around and placed them by the sink in the kitchen. After this long but successful day at Dragon Hall, I was able to catch the bus home.

(Image found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/your/a-z_norfolk/images/dragonhall.jpg)

Date: 30 April 2011
Time: 11:00-24:00
Total Hours: 20
Location: Dragon Hall
Supervisor: Rachel M.