9 tasty things to do at the Tiny Rebel Newport Food Festival

newportff — Headline sponsors Tiny Rebel

Thousands of visitors are expected to pack out the streets of Newport for this Saturday’s food festival – sponsored by Tiny Rebel.

The award-winning brewery which runs Urban Tap in the city centre is the headline sponsor of the free, one-day event which will see 80 stalls and more than a dozen food demonstrations or talks.

Tiny Rebel’s Bradley Cummings said: “We’re a proud Newport business so coming on board as headline sponsor of the festival is a great honour.”

The Golden Lion at Magor is a supporting sponsor – and two of its chefs are on the bill.

The mouth-watering line-up of chefs includes the Celtic Manor Resort’s TV chef Larkin Cen, Ben Periam of Mojo The Food Bar, James Sommerin of The Esplanade in Penarth, and Steve White of The Ruperra Arms.

The festival’s hotly-contested teen chef competition final will be staged at 10am upstairs in Newport Market, and there will be a battle of the burgers there between Pretentious Burger Kitchen and Meat Bar & Grill at 4pm.

There’s also a packed programme of entertainment with choirs and bands performing throughout the day.

Here are 9 tasty things to do at the festival:

Learn how to make perfect pasta – including a simple dish anyone can replicate at home – with the Executive Chef of The Park Michelin-starred restaurant and The Brasserie at Lucknam Park Hotel & Spa, Hywel Jones. His session will take place at 11am in the upper area of Newport Market.

Spice up your life with a tasting of some of the hot and fiery sauces from Monmouthshire producers Sorai. If you love chillis, these sauces are for you! We recommend the onion and balsamic sauce which has a hot tang.

Brush up on your cake decorating skills at a demonstration with Nia Thomas in 44 High Street at 2pm. Nia has 18 years of experience in decoration and sugar craft – and she has passed on her skills in classes and day schools for the past two years.

Sample fantastic, fresh, and funky vegetarian food at the Parsnipship stall – created at their base in South Wales. We’re in love with Parsnipship’s haloumi burgers.

Catch a demonstration by Gwent chef James Sommerin, whose Penarth restaurant has been awarded title of Best in Wales in the Good Food Guide 2016. He’ll be at the Pobl offices at 11.30am. He has inspired his 17-year-old daughter to work alongside him in his kitchen.

Check out the sweet taste of Clam’s Handmade Cakes at their stall – last year, they did a roaring trade. So pop along early to get the widest selection of cakes!

Learn how to cook with beer with the help of Tiny Rebel’s Paul Turley. His demonstration will be in the Pobl offices at 2.30pm.

Taste some wine or liqueur from exhibitors Cwm Deri Vineyard. We caught up with them at the recent Abergavenny Food Festival and loved their light and bright elderflower gin and smooth sloe gin.

Grab an ice lolly with a kick from Mojo The Food Bar’s pop-up cocktail bar – or a special cocktail created by mixologist and head bartender, Andrej Madaras.

See the full programme of chef demonstrations here: http://www.newportfoodfestival.co.uk/blog/?page_id=3293

The 80 exhibitors are:

Ally’s Confectionery

Asia Spice Box

Avril’s Country Kitchen

Baked On Green Street

Batch Farm Cheesemakers

Big G’s Grill

Bill King Artisan Baker

Black Mountain Smokery

Boonta Too Thai

Bwydiful

Ciao Bella

Claire’s Kitchen

Clam’s Handmade Cakes

Crazy Creperie Ltd

Cwm Deri Vineyard

Dinky Donuts

Doughnutterie

Ele’s Little Kitchen

Ffwrnes Pizza

Flapjack Fairy

Flour’d Up

Fresh As A Daisy

Fuffle

Gower Cottage Brownies

Grandma Bees

Gwynne’s Ice Cream

Heather’s Harvest

Honeybunch Cake Company

Huckleberry Treats

Jayne’s Bakes

Med Foods Ltd

MoJo The Food Bar and Dog ‘n’ Dough

Mr & Mrs Olives

Mr Croquewich (Creative Kitchen)

Noodles In A Box

Pretentious Burger Kitchen

Pulled Pork People

Riverford Organic Farms

Roman Legionary Museum

TechniquestRSPB Cymru

Science Cream Ltd

Seasons Farm Foods

Senior Twister

Shivers (Caws Cenarth)

Sorai

Stainswick Farm Oil LLP

Tasty Bites

Techniquest

That Fish Guy

The Parsnipship

The Preservation Society

The Ridgeway Bar & Kitchen

The Welsh Confectionary

Tiny Rebel

Tudor Brewery

Ty Gwyn Cider

Untapped Brewing Company

Urban Jungle Coffee

Varsity Coffee

MARIA WILLIAMS IS A COPYWRITER, PROFESSIONAL BLOGGER AND PR FOR SMALL BUSINESS. VISIT WORDSYOUCANUSE.CO.UK

Abergavenny Food Festival is a feast for visitors

hj-foodfest-cyrustodiwala-6581 — Cyrus Todiwala PICTURE: Huw John Photography

From top chefs and food writers to TV presenters and a former star of the Great British Bake Off – this year’s Abergavenny Food Festival will be a feast for its tens of thousands of visitors.

Last year’s event attracted 30,000 people, and this year’s festival will run from Friday night (September 16) to Sunday.

This year’s line-up has a taste of cooking from India, Italy, France, Spain, Malaysia, Poland, Japan, Korea, and the UK.

MasterChef: The Professionals presenter and former Le Gavroche senior sous chef Monica Galetti talks about her new book, The Skills, and stages a masterclass at the Borough Theatre on Friday evening.

On Saturday, Abergavenny Food Festival favourite Cyrus Todiwala will be at the Borough Theatre showing visitors how to get 120 dishes out of 10 spices with recipes from his new book, Mr Todiwala’s Spice Box. The chef, restaurateur, and author has been called the UK’s best Indian chef.

Acclaimed chef and restaurateur Jose Pizzaro will share culinary secrets from his new book, Basque, during a session at the Borough Theatre on Saturday.

Founder of the Riverford Field Kitchen, Jane Baxter, will give a taste of her new book, Leon Happy Salads, at the Masonic Hall on Sunday.

What To Eat Now star Valentine Warner returns to the festival with new fish recipes at the Priory Centre on Sunday, and Llansantffraed Court chef Tim McDougall will be demonstrating recipes with Usk Valley beef, Monmouthshire lamb, and Bristol Channel sea bass at the Priory Centre on Sunday.

If you’ve been diagnosed as a coeliac, Naomi Devlin will be holding a masterclass at the Priory Centre on Saturday called River Cottage Gluten Free. She will be preparing some of the 120 recipes in her book – which don’t compromise on taste.

Miss Foodwise blog editor Regina Ysewijn will prepare 17^th Century puddings from her book, Pride and Pudding, at the Masonic Hall on Saturday.

You could learn Japanese cooking with food writer and chef Kimiko Barber at the Borough Theatre on Saturday.

Or you could pick up expert barbecue tips from the dynamic funders of the Hang Fire Smokehouse at the Priory Centre on Saturday. Sam Evans and Shauna Guinn will also be sharing tales of their cooking misadventure from their book, Recipes and Adventures in American BBQ.

Builder-turned-baker Richard Burr, a finalist in last year’s Great British Bake Off, will tell you how to be a star baker during a session at the Masonic Hall on Saturday. He will demonstrate recipes from his first cookbook, Bake It Yourself.

Norman Musa will demonstrate recipes from his book Amazing Malaysian at the Priory Centre on Saturday, Marie Cheong-Thong and Jon Old will be talking about sake and wasabi at the Masonic Hall on Saturday, and Eleonara Galasso will talk about modern Roman cuisine at the Priory Centre on Saturday.

Vegetarians will find a feast of ideas from Alice Hart when she talks about her new book The Modern Vegetarian at the Masonic Hall on Saturday.

Also on the bill: pop-up restaurateurs Terry and George; food writer William Sitwell; writer and recipe developer Eleanor Ford; Zuza Zak; Brad McDonald; Martha Collison.

The festival features a packed programme of forages and tours, tutored tastings, and sessions at the Artisan Kitchen School.

See the full list of exhibitors here.

Find out more about the festival here.

Welsh brewers win prizes at UK’s top beer awards

A North Wales brewery scooped a prestigious award in tonight’s Champion Beer of Britain Awards.

Heavy Industry Brewing based at Henllan won the strong bitter category with its ale, 77, at the awards staged at the Great British Beer Festival in London.

Founder Tom McNeill set up the brewery in 2012 after completing a course in British Brewing Technology at Brewlab in Sunderland.

He learned he loved brewing cask ales and worked for the summer of 2009 at Purple Moose Brewery in Porthmadog. There, he learned about running a brewery.

Heavy Industry Brewing started out with a ten barrel brew kit and now produces 10 beers including 77, Diawl Bach, Nelson’s Eye, Pigeon Toed Orange Peel, and Dr Jekyll’s Last Waltz.

The winning beer, 77, is an amber IPA brewed with pale and crystal malts and has a flavour of dark Seville marmalade spiked with pepper. Find out more about the brewery here.

It was a good night for Welsh brewers.

Aberdare’s Grey Trees Brewers picked up a silver in the golden ale category for Digger’s Gold.

Newport’s Tiny Rebel Brewery – the winner of last year’s champion ale title with its beer Cwtch – picked up two awards. It won silver in the bitter category for Hank, and joint bronze in best bitter category for Cwtch.

The Great British Beer Festival is run by CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale.

This year’s supreme champion brewery is Bingham’s of Runscombe in Berkshire for its Vanilla Stout.

MARIA WILLIAMS IS A COPYWRITER, BLOGGER, PR, AND JOURNALIST. VISIT HER WEBSITE HERE.

25 reasons to check out Cardiff Brewfest this weekend

Breweries Otley and Tiny Rebel are staging a fully independent craft beer festival in Cardiff this bank holiday weekend.

The three-day event will see beers and ciders from 25 breweries, including Pontypridd’s Otley Brewing Company, Newport’s Tiny Rebel, which recently won the accolade for Britain’s top beer with its ale Cwtch, The Celt Experience, Hallet’s Cider, Bristol Beer Factory, Brecon Brewing,Crafty Brewing, Arbor, Heavy Industry, and the Tenby Brewing Company. There will also be streetfood stalls.

Cardiff craft beers — Beers from Pontypridd’s Otley Brewing Company

Each visitor gets entry to the venue, Depot, at 22, Dumballs Road, Cardiff, a programme, and their branded half pint tasting glass for £5.

Opening times; Friday – Trade – 12-3pm; Public – 3-11pm; Saturday – 12-5pm and 6-11pm; Sunday – 12-11pm.

Tickets can be pre-ordered online here, or you can pay on the door. For trade tickets please contact bradley@tinyrebel.co.uk

Newport brewery wins top title in Great British Beer Festival

The owners of Newport’s Tiny Rebel Brewery are celebrating today after winning the title of Champion British Beer with their ale, Cwtch.

The prestigious award comes at the Great British Beer Festival in Olympia, London, run by the Campaign for Real Ale,where there are 900 real ales, ciders, perries and international beers. There are 350 British breweries featured.

The brewery describes Cwtch as our very own untraditional Welsh Red Ale. Citrus and tropical fruit dominate the taste that is backed up with caramel malts that balance the moderate bitterness. Drinkability & balance makes this beer.”