Beer & Bread Festival – a great success!

After an absence of two years due to Covid lockdowns, the 2022 Beer & Bread Festival held on the first May Bank Holiday returned bigger and better than ever!

The park was full and the beer was flowing. Thanks must go to Brixton Brewery for partnering with the Friends of Windmill Gardens to make the event so successful and for organising Bullfinch Brewery, Canopy Beer and London Beer Lab to join us on the day to keep everyone happy!

Artisan bakes from BreadBread and Moji Coker were in high demand along with Gully’s hot Indian street food and Ashby’s fresh fruit and locally supplied grocery items. The pop-up café in the Brixton Windmill Centre did a roaring trade in hot and cold drinks and ice creams for children and adults.

Our Windmill Shop sold our wide range of colourful windmill-themed products and also Windmill Flour. Those who love a bargain were catered for at the bric-a-brac and plant stall and visitors curious to find out more about the windmill and flour milling queued patiently to visit inside.

In the main field the crowd was entertained by live music from Casino Moon, 3hirdeye, Electric Belles a capella choir and Los Domingos who closed the festival with a performance that got the crowd up dancing.

During the afternoon we welcomed in May the traditional way with local Morris dancers the Brixton Tatterjacks who wowed the crowd. In the family field, children learned how to dance around the maypole and there was a stall making fresh flower crowns to wear.  There were well-organised fun sports and games for children and at the KidsKreate workshop colourful craft works were produced!

There are lots more photos of the festival on our flickr page.

We could not have delivered the festival without the support of our large team of Windmill volunteers and our local partners – many thanks to Brixton Brewery; Brixton Bid who supplied the security team; Connection Crew who provided a professional and very willing team to set up and break down the site; and GoodGym members who helped in all areas on the day.

We also thank Fabio the Italian Baker who baked in our centre on the day to feed our volunteers. You can learn how to make some of the tasty items he supplied if you book to join his baking classes that start May. Find out about these classes here.

We are already planning future community events in Windmill Gardens during 2022 so look out for Art in the Park in August, our Harvest Festival in September and our Winter Market (where Santa will be in his grotto) in December.