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Welcome to the 2008 Leicester Beer Festival. The annual four day Leicester Beer Festival kicks off on Wednesday 12th March 2008 at 5pm at The Charotar Patidar Samaj, the same venue that has been so successful for the previous 7 years. (15 Minutes walk from Leicester train Station, 5 Mins walk from Clock Tower and St Margaret’s Bus station. The festival is located behind Farthings Plumbers Merchants off St Margaret’s Way on the corner of South Churchgate and Bay St next to Leicester Volkswagen. Please note the whole event is NO SMOKING including outside areas close to the building. Beers, Perry & Cider The festival will feature just over 200 beers with approx 50 coming from breweries within a 20 mile radius of Leicester City Centre on our new LocAle Bar. There will also be 30 Ciders and Perrys along with English wines and juices. Beers will be sourced from all of the Leicestershire & Rutland breweries along with beers from some of the newest and smallest micro-breweries from other parts of the country. We have beers from as far away as Aberdeen and Redruth in Cornwall.
We are launching Bees Brewery of Queniborough at our festival with their first two beers both on sale. As usual we will have some one-off "Festival Special" brews along with fruit beers. As March is the CAMRA campaigning month for dark beers - we will have a good selection of Milds, Porters and Stouts to choose from. We have about a dozen beers over 7% and will be able to offer them in one third of a pint measures as well as normal measures - this only applies to the stronger beers. Our main sponsor Everards will have their brewery bar at the festival selling up to 5 of their award winning beers, including a new Wheat beer Hazy Daze to be launched at the festival. On Wednesday night we will be judging the "Harry Cragg Beer of the Festival" in association with the Foxton Locks Inn. Note: It is unusual for all beers to be available for all sessions, if a beer is not available it is normally because someone else has got there first. We will have duplicates of some beers however. Opening Hours / Admission CAMRA members = Free admission all periods upon showing a valid membership card. Non CAMRA members = Free until the times where charge for non members is shown. Note: If you look under 21 we may ask to see ID, we also retain the right to refuse admission.
Festival GlassThe festival will feature both half pint straight and tankards along with pint straight lined oversized festival special glasses priced at £2. This is refundable when you have finished as long as the glass is not damaged although they make great souvenirs to take home! The logo this year is connected with a waterways theme. You can bring your own glass but it must be government or CE stamped with the legal half and full pint measures shown. Festival Special brews We are currently negotiating some one-off brews with our local brewers. We are not interested in beers that have been re-badged or renamed for our festival and all of our "festival specials" are genuine brews to the best of our knowledge. To date we have agreed the following specials:-
LocAle BarThis year will see Leicester Beer Festival support all of our local breweries by dedicating one bar to local beers brewed within 20 miles of Leicester City Centre. The breweries concerned will all have at least 3 of their brews available. EatingThe festival will feature English food such as our famous Stilton Cobs, 19 Gales Sausage Rolls, Lanes of Leicester Pork Pies, crisps, nuts, pork scratchings etc and our very own Curry House on site. We will again offer authentic curries making the beer go down a treat. These will be available throughout the duration of the festival. Last orders for curries will be 30 mins before closing time. We also serve tea and coffee. Soft drinks for nominated drivers are free. Sponsorship 2008 will see over 4500 people read the Beer Festival programme. We offer reasonable rates to advertisers, particularly breweries and publicans who wish to advertise. The rates and advert sizes are shown for the beer festival programme here. Contact Keith Williams on 0116 2531604 or Andy Sales 0116 2711043 if you would like more details and to book advertising space. We need a handWe cannot run a beer festival without the help of over 100 volunteers over the duration of the event. We start by collecting the beer racking on the Thursday previous. On the Sunday most of the main activity starts by building the stillage etc. On the Monday all the beer is delivered - over 230 casks! We need volunteers before, during and after the festival to help set up / clean / sell glasses / serve food / serve beer and then take it all back down again. Note: Certain tasks will require you to wear safety footwear. If you would like to help out on the festival staff please complete a staff form and send to our Staffing Officer. Please include your e-mail and a contact address. Ideally you should be a CAMRA member but we are grateful to non members for assistance as well. Non members - we will need your full details for insurance purposes. We will give you a Health & Safety brief and training is given if required. We have loads of jobs that need doing, if you don't fancy working behind a bar we will find something for you such as selling glasses, admissions, food etc. We do reward you with beer tokens and discounted food depending on how long you work.
Andy
Sales. Previous Beer Festival Reports:
This page last updated: March 31, 2008 |
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