Beefstock Festival 2026 Review: A Day of BBQ, Food and Live Music at Nozstock

James
Aug 24
9 min read

Really cool entrance to Beefstock Festival

Scorecard

🔥 Food: 9/10

🎵 Music & Entertainment: 8.5/10

🎉 Atmosphere & Vibe: 9/10

🎟️ Value for Money: 9/10

👨‍👩‍👧 Family Friendliness: 9/10

📍 Location & Setup: 8.5/10

Beefstock Festival Quick Summary

Beef Stock is a one day BBQ, food and music festival at Nozstock in Bromyard, Herefordshire, run by The Beefy Boys alongside the Nozstock team. It's right up my street, BBQ food, local produce, live acts, music, great food, so this one was always going in the diary. At Fishing Field Fork we're always chasing that field to fork feeling, so we headed down on the Saturday to see what it was all about.

Before we start, it's worth saying there's loads to see and do on site, way more than we could get round in a day, so what's below only covers a small amount of it, just to give you a proper idea of what it's actually like.

What Is Beef Stock Festival

Beef Stock is put on by The Beefy Boys and Nozstock, two full days given over to live fire cooking, good food, and music, spread across the old Nozstock festival site. It runs Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd, gates open at 11am, though most people just buy for one day rather than both.

Tickets are from £16 with parking thrown in, and it's a proper family day out too, under 12s get in free and there's kids' crafts and face painting on site if you've got little ones with you. Anyone 16 or under just needs a guardian 21+ with them.

Getting to Nozstock, Bromyard

Nozstock is based at Bromyard, Herefordshire, HR7 4LS, with parking included in the ticket price. We drove down from Birmingham through Stourport-on-Severn, around 1 hour 10 minutes.

Staying at Kingfisher Trout Lake Near Nozstock

We're camping at Kingfisher Trout Lake for the weekend with Davo, staying over in the campervan rather than heading home after the festival. Handy base being so close to Nozstock, and gives us the chance to have our own BBQ going back at camp too, on top of everything on offer at Beef Stock itself.

We met at Kingfisher, set up camp, fly fished for a couple of hours, then headed to Beef Stock, about a 6 minute drive away. Kingfisher only charges £15 a night for camping too, hard to beat as a base for the weekend. I've been to Bromyard loads of times over the years, mainly fly fishing at Kingfisher or for the old Nozstock festivals, one of the best small indie festivals in the UK. So when I heard the Beefy Boys and Nozstock were teaming up for Beef Stock, I had to book, especially having missed last year's first one. The Beefy Boys used to do all the food at the original Nozstock festivals, so it makes sense this is where the idea came from, they clearly know each other well.

First Impressions Arriving at the Festival

Getting to the festival itself was straightforward, we arrived at around 12:30pm, though there was a decent queue to get in, about 16 minutes to get through. You get a wristband with the date on it once you're through.

From there you walk down past some fantastic old vintage tractors before reaching the main event. First impressions, genuinely impressive, they'd basically taken over nearly all of the original Nozstock festival grounds and setup. Much bigger than I was expecting.

Classic vintage Tractors by the entrance
One of the main fields in side, lovely day
Big Queue to get in to Beefstock Festival

The Food at Beef Stock

This is very much the main event. The Beefy Boys' own burger truck anchors the food lineup, and there's a proper spread of street food alongside it, Gurt Wings, Taco Town, Doughzy Mares, Jerk Bay, Bao To The Broth, Bibbys Beans, Feast Pembrokeshire, and Leivathon Pits all had stalls going. Legges Butchers were there too, a family-run butcher from Bromyard itself, bringing their own farm fresh produce to the field, good to see a proper local name in amongst it all. Dietary needs are covered as well, Doughzy Mares do a proper vegan pizza, and the Beefy Boys run a Beef-Free burger too, so it's not all meat-only if that's not your thing.

For dessert there's Splitscreen Ice Cream van, Donut Delights, Party Floss, and Sinfully Delicious keeping the sweet side covered. Sinfully Delicious actually sold out pretty quickly on the day, must be doing something right.

We walked round the site first checking everything out, loads of great food stalls and craft shops, honestly hard to know where to start. Charcuterie Hereford had a stall going, really good stuff, and there was a place called Fiya selling proper oak logs if you wanted to sort your BBQ out at home. Loads more stalls besides those too, way more than we had time to look round. So we decided to have a cider or two first, Two Farmers, a great local cider at £6 (they do Two Farmers crisps too, which are one of my go to bags). Chilled out for a bit, listened to some really nice live music, then got stuck into the food properly.

Menu boards and timetables
Two Farmers local cider
One of the bar areas at Nozstock

First up was tacos from Taco Town, chosen as a lighter option before we got stuck into the bigger stuff, 3 birria beef tacos with nachos each, and these were very average if I'm honest. The tacos weren't toasted enough on top, there wasn't enough spice in the beef mixture, and the beef consommé didn't have enough depth. Could've done with some hot sauces on the side too. The pickled onions were the best bit. £15 each, but with so much else to eat, no real worries.

Taco Town Tacos
Chefs from Feast Pembrokeshire cooking meat over an open flame live fire grill
Gurt Wings food truck and crowd at Beefstock Festival in Bromyard

We also stopped at Sosij, small batch craft sausages, and had the pork BBQ tray (£18) and the craft sausage plate (£12), both really, really good, good enough that I bought 3 packs of their sausages to take home, 10 per pack.😋

Sosij BBQ platter at Beefstock Festival in Bromyard
Sosij sausage box with potatoes and beans etc
Three vacuum-sealed packs of handmade sausages from Sosij stall at Beefstock Festival

Last food stop was Under The Nut Tree for the fillet steak slider with bearnaise sauce and romaine heart, a solid 8.5 out of 10. Lucky we got one to share too, that one sold out very early. No picture unfortunately, Davo decided to take a big bite out of it before I could get one.

Skipped the Beefy Boys burger itself, I'd had one a couple of weeks earlier at the Game Fair at Ragley Hall, and with so many other options on offer it felt like a waste going back to something I'd already had. Mine you it was so good so i had to think long and hard about it.

I really regret not pre-ordering the All Star Platter though, I do wish I had. Saw one come out at a nearby table and it looked the business, 7 styles of BBQ meats, 5 sides, and two extras. Each one from a different chef on the bill too, Hang Fire BBQ's coal pit hot link, Sosij's cheeseburger link, DJ BBQ's Alabama chicken, Under The Nut Tree's pulled pork, Matty's BBQ Chop Shop's pork pops, Andy Low n Slow's brisket, and McBagley BBQ's tri-tip with red eye gravy. I told DJ BBQ it looked great and he just came back with "you look great man," properly funny. It's £75 and says it feeds 2 to 3, though realistically I'd say more like 1 to 2 in our case. Definitely ordering that one next time.

DJ BBQ grilling Alabama chicken thighs at Beefstock Festival
The Beefy Boys burger Truck
Under The Nut Trees menu

A couple of shout outs worth giving here. Tubby Toms' stall looked superb, a proper selection of ribs and sauces all on display, and they'd just launched a new one, a Sunday roast sauce, made to bring out that rich, roasty flavour, perfect poured over a roast dinner or any leftover meat you've got knocking about. Should have picked one up while I was there, another one to add to the list of things I regret not buying.

Ginger Beard's Preserves, down from Bristol, had a queue on them all day too, and looking at the products he's producing it's easy to see why, looked like the real deal. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for those in future.

Tubby Toms sauces and rubs
Ginger Beard's Preserves stall showcasing artisan hot sauces, chutneys, and jams
Fiya oak firewood logs for live fire cooking at Beefstock Festival

The Competitions We Enjoyed

The Weber BBQ Burger Competition

After the tacos we headed to the Weber BBQ area, where they were running a burger competition, around 10 entries from what I remember. Really enjoyed this one, you got to see the finished results and taste some of them, all judged by a panel of experts and a few foodies. Genuinely interesting seeing what people came up with, a rich French onion style burger that looked fantastic, a good looking Spanish style burger, and the signature Oxlahoma burger, just to name a few. Not sure who actually won it, I think that'll get announced on The Beefy Boys website soon.

The Chilli Eating Competition

Oxlahoma burger competition entry
Chilli eating stage

The other event I was most looking forward to was the chilli eating competition at the Stockyard, hosted by the Clifton Chilli Club in Bristol, 10 entrants. The place was packed out as the chilli strength ramped up through the rounds, and honestly it was properly funny watching them struggle. A lady called Helen came second, genuinely impressive to watch. It clearly gets serious by the later rounds too, there was a medical team stationed just outside the competition area for the contestants, and a few of them ended up being sick and needed a bit of help. I'll definitely be back for that one next time. 😂

What Else Was There at Beefstock

Away from the food there was loads more going on. We Are Farming Minds had their own stage there too, they're a Herefordshire charity, sponsored by Two Farmers, running talks and panel chats over both days about farming, mental health, and looking after the countryside. Good to see that on site to be honest, farming's one of those jobs where mental health takes a proper hit and there's not always a lot of support out in the sticks, so having them right there in amongst everyone made sense. I think it's really important too, without farmers there'd be no food, and that's something most people just take for granted.

Also, there's a live fire demo stage that ran all day, some proper names on it too, Genevieve Taylor, DJ BBQ, Sam and Shauna from Hang Fire, Murf from The Beefy Boys, a fair few others besides. Didn't get chance to sit and watch a full demo myself, too much else pulling us in different directions, but it was clearly well attended whenever we walked past. There was also a Comp-BBQ UK competition running across the weekend, with the Sunday winner earning a shot at the BBQ World Cup in Vegas.

Two music stages were going as well, one leaning more folk and acoustic, the other a bit more upbeat with some funk and ska thrown in, plus a DJ area keeping things ticking over through the afternoon with house and old skool. Nice backdrop while we wandered round eating and drinking, gave the whole day a proper festival feel.

Main Stage at Nozstock Festival
HQ BBQ area, live cooking demos
Nozstock host Beefstock

Beefstock Festival 2026 Review: The Verdict

Would I go again? 100%. It's a very good site, well run, with a fantastic atmosphere and great food throughout, exactly the kind of day we love at Fishing Field Fork.

If you want some proper inspiration on all things BBQing, rubs, sauces, techniques, the lot, this is the place to get it. And I reckon it'll only get better as the years go on too. Might even have a go at the burger comp myself one year!

What worked well

Great food
Loads of good stalls
Fantastic atmosphere
Well run, with a great vibe and genuinely chill, nice people
Great setting

What could be better:

Long queues at points
Needs more outside seating, bean bags or similar, Tip take a light weight chairing chair
Very busy overall, worth bearing in mind if you don't like crowds
Camping on site for the night would be a great addition too

Common Questions About Beef Stock Festival

What is Beef Stock?

It's a proper celebration of BBQ, fire cooking, and good tunes, put together by The Beefy Boys and the Nozstock team. Think live fire demos, proper street food, and a full day of music, all set out in the Herefordshire countryside. There's even a chilli eating competition if you're brave enough.

What's the lineup like?

There's a full live fire cookery stage running all day, with genuine names on it, plus local makers and producers selling rubs, sauces, and gear if you want to level up your own setup at home. On top of that the Nozstock crew do what they do best, kids' crafts, entertainment, and that proper festival feel running through the whole site.

What about tickets?

Tickets start from £16 with parking included, and it's one day or the other, not both, unless you're properly keen. Under 12s get in free, though you still need to grab them a free ticket so the numbers add up. Anyone 16 or under needs a guardian 21+ with them on site.

What's the food actually like?

Properly good. The Beefy Boys run their burger truck plus a load of other traders, wings, tacos, pizza, jerk, and more, and they've thought about dietary needs too, gluten free buns and vegan options are all covered if you ask the vendors on the day.

Can you bring the kids?

Yes, as long as they've got a guardian 21+ with them. There's a proper kids' craft area and face painting laid on too, so it's not just an adults' day out.