HUNDREDS of people attended the first ever Festival of Sausages at Country Harvest near Ingleton. With seventeen varieties of new flavours of sausage on offer, it was a feast for the tastebuds.

A sausage tasting panel made up of Coun Carl Lis, County Coun David Ireton, Matt Young and Nigel Dyson made tasting notes on eight new flavours suggested by customers.

The outright winner was Duck and Plum Sauce, closely followed by Brisket of Beef and Garstang Blue and Pork Mango and Chilli which one judge declared ‘the perfect sausage’.

All three flavours will now become regulars on the butchery counter alongside existing award winners.

Other sausages which proved popular included Pork, Chive and Wensleydale and Pork and Marmalade.

Award winning butcher George Taylor said: “We were overwhelmed by the number of people and sheer interest in how we make the sausages and all the different flavours.

“We had people popping in with their favourite ingredients and in one case a chap travelled 70-miles so we made him the sausages on the spot.”

That customer was Kevin Brown who had driven from Ilkley with his favourite spicy piri piri sauce from Portugal. “I saw you were looking for new flavours and I thought I have never seen a piri piri sausage so I brought the sauce in,” he said.

Within 10 minutes the butchery department had created the sausages, named Mr Brown’s piri piri sausages, and he left a very happy man.

Other events at the three-day festival included a ‘How Many Sausages Can You Eat in a Minute’ challenge won by Michael Ingledow, a barman at the Craven Heifer pub in Ingleton. The loser was Chris Leather, a gardener from the village, who was still quite happy as he went on to buy £75 of sausages to share with his friends and his only concern was that his rucksack wasn’t big enough.

And on Saturday ten brave souls, including South Lancashire Advanced Motorists out on a 150-mile biking trip around the Yorkshire Dales and nine year-old James Robson who was on holiday in the area – competed in the Hot Banger Challenge. Four different heats of sausage were on offer from mild ones like Chicken Madras to the ultimate Pork with Scotch Bonnet chilli.

Country Harvest owner Mike Clark said the whole event had been a huge success. “I’m now looking forward to holding a bigger Festival of Sausages next year with even more unusual varieties,” he said.