This Saturday sees the launch of the 2017 season of Bitten Street at the Oxford Castle. As always, we will be bringing you our favourite street food traders as well as some exciting new flavours to tantalise your tastebuds.

We’ll have cracking music from DJ Ollie East (I’ve already submitted my music requests so listen out for some fairly eclectic selections – much to Jacqui’s dismay!) and of course, the Bitten Bar will be back!

We’ve travelled the depths of the Shire to bring you a selection of the best beverages for Bitten. We’ve got beers, lagers, ciders, a special Bitten cocktail and soft drinks too to keep you well lubricated amongst all the food. So what will be on the menu?

Well, first off, I managed to find beers that perfectly describe Jacqui and I! Both from Long Crendon’s XT Brewery,  one has dark stormy flavours and is a bold beast of a beer while the other is a crisp, refreshing blonde, perfectly served in a dinky bottle. No prizes for guessing which is which!

So what is on the drinks menu? There’s three beers from LAM Brewing who were extremely popular at Craft Beer Rising last week – Happily NYK, their 5.2%abv American IPA is back. There’s Cloud Pleaser, a 4.1% wheat beer and also Rye Not? a 6.2% rye IPA. All the LAM beers are vegan friendly!

From Loose Cannon in Abingdon, we have their 5%abv Oxford Pils and their 4.1%abv Session IPA – which is also vegan.

Also from XT is their XT4, a 3.8%abv modern session amber ale, English and Belgian malts matched with English and American hops. And the afore-mentioned Squid Ink, coming in at 5.5%abv plus OX1 at 4.2%abv.

Last year’s cocktails were dictated by Jacqui’s spirit of choice and were largely rum based. This year, she’s shifted onto the gin and so our cocktail this month is known as the Bitten Gin-Gin – a shot of Tanqueray, a splash of spiced apple with a tingle of ginger, topped up with Fevertree tonic water. Long, cool, refreshing but with a little kick of heat!

Soft drinks will be a selection of San Pellegrino flavours and Cawston Press juice boxes for the kids. All that remains now is for me to say not just “Come Hungry” but “Come Thirsty” too!

SEE YOU SATURDAY! 11-3 OXFORD CASTLE