Leicester Beer Festival 2006

A complete success again!

The Annual Leicester Beer Festival started off on Wednesday 15^th March 2006 opening to CAMRA members and trade at The Charotar Patidar Samaj, the same venue that has been so successful for the previous 5 years.

The Harry Cragg "Beer of the Festival” judging was also carried out on the Wednesday night using tasting panels. See results.

Opening to the public on Thursday with 74 different breweries and 182 different beers to choose from along with over 20 Perry and Ciders, the festival was a must for any real ale lover.

Beers were sourced from the Leicestershire & Rutland breweries along with some of the newest and smallest micro-breweries from our neighbouring counties. Atomic, Offa’s Dyke, Digfield Ales and Bottle Brook breweries all made their festival debut. This range was supplemented with beers from some other areas, including Sussex.

Another record-breaking attendance saw 3,787 people attend the festival (10% up on last year) and beer consumption was 13,703 pints. Friday was again the busiest day with 1,857 people in total through the doors with 6,543 pints consumed.

With an increased beer order again, we opened on Saturday with 140 beer choices so that we would not run out. Indeed, we closed with 40 beers left on to maintain choice right to the end.

Everards had their brewery bar at the festival for the first time and this was so popular that Everards had been drunk dry by 5pm on Saturday.

The authentic Indian curries were a hit with many people and our traditional English food counter staffed by CAMRA volunteers sold out each evening despite the order being almost doubled on last year.

Once again we wish to thank everyone who donated to the LOROS collection buckets, raising £426.58 The Tombola stall also collected £784.90. This will be presented to LOROS in the near future.

We would like to thank everyone who attended for making the event so successful.

We would also like to thank our main sponsor Everards and all of our advertisers and brewers of festival specials. Also, The Leicester Mercury and BBC Radio Leicester for their coverage of the event. We would like to thank our beer agency suppliers: Out of the Vaults, Buntingford, Beer My Guest, Shardlow and Dowbridge Distributors for supplying beers.

The festival committee had to deal with the challenge of new CAMRA Health & Safety guidelines for beer festivals and the new Licensing laws to make this festival possible this year. We would like to thank all of the volunteers who worked throughout the event and made it another successful festival, including the Hinckley & Bosworth Sub- Branch members. Thanks also to St Johns Ambulance who provided first aid cover for the festival.

Andy Sales,

Beer and Brewery Co-ordinator.

Click for Beer of the Festival results.

Click for Cider Bar Report.

Previous Beer Festival Reports:

This page last updated: May 28, 2008

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