Clitheroe Beer Festival

The next Clitheroe Beer Festival will run at St Michael & St John’s Assembly Room in Clitheroe from May 9-11, 2024. Try over 60 real ales, ciders and perries and enjoy live music and food on site…

Clitheroe Beer Festival 2024

We are delighted to announce that Clitheroe Beer Festival will return in its customary mid May slot again in 2024. In the meantime we will continue to support our local pubs, bars, brewers and distributors. We would like to thank all our sponsors, supporters and brewers for supporting us in 2023 and all those who’ve signed up for 2024 already, it’s going to be another festival to remember!

 

Over 60 Cask & Craft Ales

We’ll have over 60 cask and craft ales for you – we’ll bob the list below nearer to the day – PLUS a great selection of ciders and perries and a Gin Bar too, perfect if you’re into beer but your friends aren’t. Entry to Clitheroe Beer Festival for card carrying CAMRA members is £1 on the preview evening Thursday and £1 before 6pm on Friday & Saturday (£2 after 6pm). It’s £4 entry per day for non members (£5 after 6pm).

Special Festival Ales

Each year we ask a select number of local breweries to brew a special new beer just for our festival. Find the logos and links to our 2023 brewers’ webites above. Many thanks to all these brewers for their ideas and inspiration for these tasty brews (we’ll be updating with the 2024 ones when we know them):

 

Avid Brewing Co – a staple of our festival, Avid are returning with another fabulous 10% Russian Imperial Stout, Catherine The Greatest. Aged for 15 months in oak whisky barrels and brewed in memory of Catherine Snelling, dark beer lover and former Clitheroe Beer Festival Organiser.

 

The Beer Shack – a small nanobrewery in this fabulous Clitheroe craft beer bar, have brewed possibly the best named beer of the festival, The Greatest Biscuit Salesman There Ever Was, a 5% Custard Cream Pale Ale.

 

Bowland Brewery – Once again they’ve brewed our “Festival Ale” – this year called Mango Obscura a 4% Pale Ale, hopped with Mosaic and a large addition of mango purée.

 

Hop Doctor Brewing – a small nanobrewery in Clitheroe. They have brewed Parlick, a 4.1% a West Coast IPA with Citra and Mosaic hops.

 

Libatory Brewery – a first visit for this Altrincham based nanobrewery, who have brewed Purest Green, a 5.9% Green Tea IPA.

 

Peregrine Brewery – last year’s winner of our “Beer of the Festival”. Based in Rishton, this year they’ve brewed Red Aiofe, a 4.5% Irish Red Ale.

 

Unbound Brewery – this Colne based brewery won the “Beer of the Festival” at Pendle Beer Festival earlier this year. They will be brewing Baroque, a 4.7% Vienna Lager.

 

Wakey Wakey Brew Co. – a first visit to the festival for these talented new Rochdale brewers. They’re brewing Rise and Shine, a 4.2% Pale Ale using hop CF 252 from the UK development hop project.

 

A Day at the Races!

Our festival theme for CBF24 is ‘A Day at the Races!’ We’ll have beers sourced from breweries near racecourses or with horse racing related names. Make sure you visit early as they won’t be around furlong!

Sponsorship Opportunities

Many sponsorship opportunities are available … including festival glasses, polo shirts, marquee, beer, cider and gin bars, stage, entertainment, barrels and more. As a thank you, all sponsors get their logos on this site, see below.

Sponsor a barrel at CBF2024 and get your logo in front of hundreds of local beer lovers plus two FREE pints, FREE entry and access to an exclusive Sponsors, Trade & CAMRA only evening on Thursday 9 May!

In 2023 our Corporate Table offer sold out super-fast. Reserve a table for 6 or 8 guests on preview night, Thurs 9 May. Each gets free entry, free festival glass, two free pints (or two glasses of wine, or gin)  plus nibbles and cheese and a hot sausage bap each (vegetarian options available).

Prices to be confirmed.

 

Advertising at Clitheroe Beer Festival

Why not advertise in our Festival Programme and reach a potential audience of over 1500? It’s a cost-effective way to promote your business to hundreds of local visitors, and visitors from across the region and the UK….

 

Live Music

We’ll have live music from local bands on Friday and Saturday evenings. The Swing Commanders will be joining us on Friday, and Rebel Valley will be entertaining us on Saturday.

Visitor Information

Clitheroe Beer Festival 2024 runs from Thurs 9 – Sat 11 May 2024*  times at base of site

Our venue is The Assembly Hall of St Michaels & St Johns – aka ‘The Old Schoolrooms’
Entry for card carrying CAMRA members is £1 on the preview evening for CAMRA & trade on Thursday and £1 before 6pm on Friday & Saturday (£2 after 6pm).

Non member entry is £4 on Friday & Saturday (£5 after 6pm).
Buy a ‘starter card’ on entry.
Starter card includes half or pint glass hire and drinks tokens.
Further top-up cards of tokens are then available.
No money is taken at our festival bars.
All unused tokens can be refunded on exit.
If you don’t want to keep your glass you can get your hire fee back.

NB! We will be welcoming contactless card payment as well as cash! 

 

Festival Fringe Events

We’ve always prided ourselves on being known as “the friendly festival” and each year we try and introduce new ideas to make your visit more enjoyable. In 2023 our friends from some fantastic Clitheroe bars ran some special events around the town centre linking to our festival. We feel it’s vital not to be seen as a stand-alone event anymore, but something that allows us, as a CAMRA festival, to connect with the vibrant bar scene that has developed in our own town. We are happy to work in partnership with some of our local bars and hope that you find time to support them and get involved with their events…or just try all the special beers that they’ll be offering! We’ll be adding our 2024 events a few months before the festival.

 

Thanks to our 2024 Sponsors…

Frequently Asked Questions

I love beer / cider / perry but my preferred drinking companion doesn’t, do you serve other drinks?

Yes sirree! We’ll have wine, fizz and gin available too from our festival bars

Are soft drinks available?

They are indeed, if you’re a designated driver let our bar-staff know and you can have free soft drinks – we normally have lemonade, cola and water

Is there an outside space at the festival to smoke / dance / sunbathe / howl at the moon?

There’s a fabulous space at the back and we’ll have a marquee out there too, so if it’s sunny you can get a tan while having a beer, if it’s rainy you can howl at the moon from the marquee

Are you on Social Media and / or How can we contact you?

Indeed we are! You can Like us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter (icons below) and can message us on either platform or click the button below to email us

I’d like to Volunteer please!

When we’re closer to a festival, in the Visitors Section above, there will be a link to download the volunteer form. Just fill it in and send it to the email address given on the form and someone will be in touch 

 

Venue

The Assembly Hall of St Michael & St John’s, Lowergate, Clitheroe BB7 1AG

2024 Dates

Thu 9 May, 3pm-9.30pm*
Fri 10 May, 11.30am-11pm
Sat 11 May, 11am-10.30pm

*Sponsors, trade & CAMRA only

Email Us

Click below to email our Festival Organiser, Chris Nicol