'Awesome' – that was the taste left over from this year's fantastic food festival in Dartmouth.

The huge event turned into a show-stopping monster sell-out as more than 15,000 people flooded into the town for the three-day celebration of food and drink.

Some stallholders in the marquees and the town market had run out of food by the end of Saturday.

The festival's specially brewed beer Joyce's Choice – named after for Dartmouth restaurateur and food writer Joyce Molyneux – went down so well that all 1,102 pints were downed by the end of Sunday.

The Dartmouth park and ride site and the overflow field were packed for most of the three days of the festival.

Festival chairman David Jones said: The word most used was awesome. Last year we had a fantastic food festival and had brilliant feedback about how good it had gone.

'We did not set out to do it but the feedback we have got this year is that it was a step up and a huge improvement on last year.

'We made a few little tweaks here and there and tried to do a lot more in The Flavel. The whole buzz was that it was great.'

The town said cheers to its ninth food festival as Joyce's Choice, brewed at the Bridgetown microbrewery in Totnes was sailed up the Dart – to be met by Joyce herself who downed some of the ale to officially open the event.

The brewery supplied 14 barrels of Joyce's Choice and another seven and a half barrels of Festival Stout – which also sold out.

More than 40 chefs were involved in the cookery demonstrations and workshops which went ahead under canvas in Royal Avenue Gardens, as the town's park was turned into a cuisine-filled 'tent city' for the three days, and at The Flavel.

The cooking line up suffered just one hiccup when Babbacombe's Cary Arms chef Ben Kingdon could not make it because of illness but festival organisers quickly found a replacement.

The whole event managed to stay one step ahead of the weather as blue skies and sunshine greeted visitors for the whole three days – which ended just hours ahead of this week's weather front which brought rain and strong winds with it.

'Remarkably we were very lucky with the weather,' Mr Jones added.

However, the weather turned out to be a bit of a problem for the River Cottage team who had organised a series of food forages in the woods at Gallants Bower and the shoreline around Castle Cove. They were mainly hunting mushrooms which turned out to be few and far between thanks to the dry weather.

'Ironically it was because of the weather that they didn't find very much,' said Mr Jones. 'This week I expect they would be able to find loads of them.'

It costs around £35,000 to stage the Dartmouth festival each year – which is funded through sponsors, exhibitors renting marquee space and fund raising events through the year. We also get all sorts of support from businesses in the town from products, people doing some cooking for us, providing accommodation and providing staff for events,' said Mr Jones.

'For example the Royal Castle Hotel leant us all of their outside catering equipment for the big dinner in The Flavel. Without that, hiring all the stuff in would have cost us hundreds of pounds. We rely on that community support and it is one big community effort. I think that is part of its charm,' he added.

Around a dozen 'core group' volunteers work on organising the festival all the year around which grows into a 'mini army' of around 40 to 50 more who look after kitchens, run information stands 'and keep the whole thing moving along,' Mr Jones said.