Pub preparing pumps for big beer festival weekend

Live music, street food, and local tipples are to be served up as a pub hosts its first beer festival. Just over a year since new landlords Emma and Kev Bonington breathed life back into Southwell’s The Wheatsheaf Pub, they are gearing up to offer a new experience at their venue. It’ll also see a new covered ‘secret garden’ seating area unveiled — boasting views of the Minster spires.

Kev said: “This weekend we’re going to have food stalls, ten cask ales, live music. It’s the first beer festival we’ve done so we’re kind of experimenting ourselves. “We’ve trying to do something a bit different, and we’ve got another lined up for the summer too.



Hopefully if this one takes off we’ll go even bigger then.” The beer line up for the festival — which will take place over the bank holiday weekend of April 18, 19, and 20 — will include drinks from Nottinghamshire’s Castle Rock Brewery, Derby’s Dancing Duck Brewery, and others from Lincoln, Cambridgeshire, Yorkshire, Newcastle, and Norwich. To accompany the pints, Zenzerros Wood Fired Pizza, of Hucknall, will be serving up food from its truck on the Friday and Saturday, from 5pm.

Live music will be from Evie M on Friday from 7pm, Hanousha on Saturday from 5pm, and Lydia Rose on Saturday from 8pm. The new secret garden will be available for private bookings with table service for the festival — and will continue to be offered as a party venue going forward. “We had an old knackered patio area round the back,” Kev added.

“The front space is great for the summer when it’s good weather and we put up a marquee last winter, but we decided to invest in a permanent covered area. “It’s got a open side so it opens onto the market place and the town, and you can see the Minster’s spires. We’ve made it a really cosy space.

” It’s been a successful first year running the pub for the pair — who took it over in February 2024 after it had been sat empty for many months — with Emma even securing a nomination as best newcomer landlord. They’ve put emphasis on it being a ‘local’ and a warm and welcoming space, dubbed an “old-style boozer with modern flair” on the pub’s Facebook page. Kev said: “It’s been a good one.

We’re busier than we’ve ever been before and we’re looking to take on a few more staff members. “We’ve just booked the Morris dancers for the folk festival weekend. There’s lots going on.

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