Hundreds of beer lovers descended on Malmesbury at the weekend for the second annual beer festival.

About 400 people enjoyed the 22 different beers and 10 ciders on offer throughout the event on Friday evening and Saturday at the town hall.

Organisers have already vowed to hold another similar event in 2015 with preparations due to begin at the end of this year following the increased popularity of the festival.

Co-organiser Ray Sanderson said: “It was a great success. It was really good and relaxed; there were no problems at all.

“Everybody enjoyed themselves and had fun.

“People were saying they would like another one next year, which there will be. We will start looking at that towards the end of the year.”

Although a final fundraising figure hasn’t been counted yet, organisers are confident they have raised at least £2,000 to be donated to three schools in the town, St Joseph’s, Malmesbury Primary School and the academy, Malmesbury School.

“The group of us who organised it thought it would be good to give the profits to local schools, as last year the profits went towards my mayor’s fund,” added Mr Sanderson, who is a town councillor and was the mayor last year.

“We will be presenting the money to the schools as soon as possible - this beer festival was more successful than last year,” he said.

“Most of the beer was drunk so we didn’t have hardly any wastage and everybody enjoyed themselves.”

Among the musical acts over the weekend was a Neil Diamond tribute band on Friday night and blues and rock performances on Saturday.

The event was designed to coincide with the launch of the Flying Monk Brewery based in Hulllavington, co-owned by Tony Kemp who is one of the festival organisers.

Mr Kemp said that early indications show they have raised about £800 for the schools so far.

He said: “We just need to cross a few ‘t’s and dot a few ‘i’s before we know for sure.

“This was our second attempt at the festival and it went very well indeed. We couldn’t be more pleased with it.

“We had a few more people attend from outside of Malmesbury this year, from Chippenham and Cirencester.

“I think everybody particularly enjoyed the music, so I think next year we should call it the beer and music festival.

“We will be a little bit bigger next year; it’s all been a learning curve at the moment so it will help for next year.”