The Annual Leicester Beer Festival started off on Thursday March 17^th at The Charotar Patidar Samaj, the same venue that had been so successful for the previous 4 years.

The previous night saw the first ever Leicester CAMRA members’ night with invited trade guests and “Beer of the Festival” judging.

With 55 different breweries and 141 different beers to choose from along with a choice of perrys and ciders the festival was a must for any real ale lover.

Beers were sourced from all of the Leicestershire & Rutland breweries along with some of the newest and smallest micro- breweries from our neighbouring counties with Pot Belly and Ufford breweries both making their debut. This range was supplemented with beers from Yorkshire and East Anglia.

Another record-breaking attendance saw 3443 people attend the festival (25% up on last year) and get through 12009 pints. Thursday saw a massive 52% increase in people through the door and more beer was ordered in case the growth continued on Friday and Saturday.

Friday was the busiest day with 1483 people in total through the doors with 5420 pints consumed.

With an increased beer supply on Saturday, we opened with 105 beer choices so that we would not run out. Indeed, we closed with 45 beers left on to maintain choice right to the end.

The authentic Indian curries were a hit with many people and our traditional English food counter manned by CAMRA volunteers ran out each evening despite an increased order on last year.

We would like to thank everyone for attending and making the event so popular. We would also like to thank our main sponsor Everards and all of our advertisers and brewers of festival specials. Also, we would like to thank Out of the Vaults, Buntingford and Beer My Guest for supplying beers.

The festival committee would like to thank all of the volunteers who worked throughout the event and made it “better than ever before”. We will be in touch with each of you.

We had no negative feedback and hope to build on the success of this festival again next year. How much bigger can it get?

So what do we do next year to make it even bigger and better? What theme shall we use? Let us know.

Andy Sales
Beer and Brewery Co-ordinator

Click for Beer of the Festival results and Cider Bar Report.

Previous Beer Festival Reports

This page last updated: May 28, 2008

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