Leicester Beer Festival 2007

The annual four day Leicester Beer Festival started off on Wednesday 14^th March 2007 at 5pm at The Charotar Patidar Samaj, the same venue that has been so successful for the previous 6 years.

The festival this year featured 80 different breweries and 194 different beers, amounting to a colossal 18040 pints along with 30 perrys and ciders (see Festival Cider Bar Report).

Beers were sourced from all of the Leicestershire & Rutland breweries along with some of the newest and smallest micro-breweries from our neighbouring counties. Nutbrook Brewery from West Hallam made its first ever beer festival appearance. The range was enhanced with other popular beers and some very rare Welsh beers.

The “Beer of the Festival” judging was carried out on the Wednesday night using tasting panels. See results in News.

Another record-breaking attendance saw 4265 people attend during the duration of the Festival (12% up on last year) and beer consumption was up by similar numbers. Friday was again the busiest day with some people having to wait a short while outside due to our hall capacity being reached.

Some people took advantage of our beer festival shuttle bus from the railway station using preserved bus No 16 that also featured on our festival glass. The glass was so popular we had sold all 2000 by Saturday afternoon.

With an increased beer order again on last year, we opened on Saturday with 134 beer choices so that we would not run out. Indeed, we closed with 36 beers left on to maintain choice right to the end.

Everards again had their brewery bar at the festival and launched their new beer ‘Sly Fox’. This was so popular that all four casks had been sold by Friday lunchtime!

Also launched was Steamin Billy – Billy’s Last Bark named after the famous Jack Russell at the Cow & Plough, Oadby who died recently. Again this was so popular it had sold out by Friday night but it can be found on sale at the pub.

The improved authentic Indian curries were a real success and our traditional English food counter manned by CAMRA volunteers was busy as always.

Once again we collected for LOROS by means of collection buckets and Tombola. The total exceeded £1270 - Thank You.

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, BBC Radio Leicester for their coverage of the event. Also, our main two beer agency suppliers: Buntingford Brewery and Beer My Guest for supplying some fantastic beers.

The festival committee would like to thank all  the volunteers who worked throughout the event and made it another complete success, including the Hinckley & Bosworth sub branch members. Thanks also to the Red Cross who provided first aid cover for the festival.

Leicester Beer Festival 2008 - it’s less than a year away!

Andy Sales.
Beer and Brewery Co-ordinator.

Previous Beer Festival Reports:

This page last updated: May 28, 2008

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