Leicester Beer Festival 2011 This page last updated: December 3, 2011

Welcome to the 2011 Leicester Beer Festival.

The annual four day Leicester Beer Festival kicks off on Wednesday 9^th March 2011 at 5pm at The Charotar Patidar Samaj, the same venue that has been so successful for the previous 10 years. (15 Minutes walk from Leicester Railway Station, 5 Mins walk from Clock Tower and St Margaret’s Bus station. The festival is located off St Margaret’s Way on the corner of South Churchgate and Bay St behind "Plug" Bathrooms and adjacent Leicester Volkswagen. Postcode LE1 3AE.

Please note the whole event is NO SMOKING including outside areas close to the building.

Beers, Perry & Cider

The festival will feature just over 220 beers with approx 85 coming from breweries within a 25 mile radius of Leicester City Centre on our LocAle Bars. There will also be approx 35 Ciders and Perries.

Beers will be sourced from most of the Leicestershire & Rutland breweries along with beers from some of the newest and smallest micro-breweries from other parts of the country.

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.

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 and this year we will have a stock of "Reserve" beers to come on later, these will be advertised prior to the event.

Admission

CAMRA members = Free admission all periods upon showing a valid membership card however, you will have to purchase a festival glass at the admissions for £2.50 which is fully refundable when you have finished.

NON CAMRA members = See below for admission prices - you will also have to purchase a festival glass at the admissions for £2.50 which is fully refundable when you have finished.

If you look under 21 we will ask to see ID, we retain the right to refuse admission. The festival is licensed premises and we have the right to remove anyone from the festival at any time. Children will be permitted in the Food Hall area during the daytime - no later than 7pm.

Opening Hours and cost

Festival Glass

The festival glass will be available in half pint tankards and pint straight, lined, oversized priced at £2.50. This is refundable when you have finished as long as the glass is not damaged although they make great souvenirs to take home! The theme this year is related to 40 years of decimalisation.

You can bring your own glass to use but it must be government or CE stamped with the legal half and full pint measures shown. If doing this you must still buy a festival glass upon entry but can refund it whenever you please during the festival.

Festival Special Events

On the Wednesday night we will be judging our "LocAle Beer of the Festival". Volunteer judges will blind taste a selection of the LocAle beers. If you would like to book a place you need to contact Keith Williams. This will normally be for invited tasters but we may need extra volunteers.

Wednesday will also see the launch of Full Mash Brewery - Chopper Fuel. This beer is a charity beer whereby the brewery donate 10p for every pint sold to the Derbyshire, Leicestershire & Rutland Air Ambulance. More info

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 Bar

Leicester Beer Festival supports our local breweries. We have extended our area to 25 miles from the beer festival site as the crow flies. This enables us to represent most, but not all of the breweries involved.

Eating

The festival will feature English food such as our famous Stilton Cobs, Sausage Rolls, 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 / Advertising / T Shirts

2011 will see 5000 people read the Beer Festival programme. We offer reasonable rates to advertisers, particularly breweries and publicans who wish to advertise. Contact our Festival Publicity Officer on 07769 166386 if you would like more details about advertising packages including our brewery and LocAle pub sponsorship package or to book advertising space in the Beer Festival programme.

Our Festival T Shirts can be purchased at £9 at the Festival Membership Stand or reserved in advance from our Publicity Officer.

We need a hand

We 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 Friday previous. On the Sunday most of the main activity starts by building the stillage etc. On the Sunday and Monday all the beer is delivered - over 270 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 staffing form and send to our Staffing Officer. The easiest way is to copy the form and send it as a word document. 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 glasses, admissions, food etc. We do reward you with beer tokens and discounted food depending on how long you work.

Andy Sales.
Beer and Brewery Co-ordinator.

Previous Beer Festival Reports:

This page last updated: December 3, 2011

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