Steam Railway manager Chris Bathe hosts the Real Ale Tasting Society. Ref: 77296-29 FURSTY Ferret, Thunderbolt and Hullabaloo are among the beers appearing at an Old Town beer festival this month.

The Real Ale Tasting Society known as RATS is holding its seventh annual ale festival at the Steam Railway pub in Newport Street.

Around 90 real ales are being brought to the pub this month from around 50 breweries across the country, including Devizes brewers Wadworth.

Emma Walklett, assistant manager at the pub, said: "Everyone's invited. It's a great opportunity to try a wide variety of beers.

"These events are always popular with the punters and there is always a beer to suit everyone's tastes."

Richard James, of Swindon CAMRA The Campaign for Real Ale said that real ales provide a lot more variety of flavours than normal beers.

He said: "I like to think of real ale and normal beers as beef burgers. If you go to McDonalds you get the same burger wherever you go, the taste doesn't change. Whereas if you go and have a burger in a restaurant the taste of that burger will be different in different restaurants."

"Interest in real ales tends to be quite static, but the numbers of small breweries continues to increase.

"They are always springing up. It is well worth trying real ales and something new.

"At any real ale festival bar staff are always willing to help you decide what beers are worth a try."

All real ales are brewed from malted barley, hops, yeast and water although other ingredients can be used as well.

Yeast ferments the sugars in the malt to alcohol while the hops provide bitter flavour and aroma.

In regular beers the fermentation process is cut off when the beer is loaded into the keg because carbon-dioxide is pumped in. But in real ales, this process continues in the cask right up until the beer is served.

Due to this the beer has a shorter shelf life once the cask is opened, but real ale lovers insist that this process provides a better taste.

This was appreciated by Zac Josey, 30, from Old Town who said: "The taste of real ales is much better than lagers. The quality of them is better too.

"They are also less gassy than normal lagers and much cheaper."

Paul Whalen, 50, also from Old Town, agreed: "The taste of real ale is much better than keg beers.

"The variety is much better and I love the different gravities."

The ale festival will go on until May 31. The cost of a pint of real ale depends on the alcohol volume, but ranges from £2.08 to £2.42 a pint.