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The Great British Beer Festival (sometimes abbreviated as GBBF) is an annual beer festival organised by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). It presents a selection of cask ales, and the Champion Beer of Britain awards, and is held in August of each year. GBBF's sister festival, the Great British Beer Festival Winter, is held in February each year. [1]
Great British Beer Festival is styled as the "biggest pub in the world" [2] and offers around 900 different beverages, at least 450 of which are beers from British breweries, as well as around 200 foreign beers from countries including Belgium, Germany and the USA, as well traditional British cider and perry. [2] [3] The festival is staffed by unpaid volunteers, around 1,000 of whom work at the festival. [2]
The festival is usually held during the first full week in August and runs from Tuesday to Saturday. [2] The Tuesday afternoon session is only open to the trade and press, with the Champion Beer of Britain award winners being announced mid-afternoon. The general public are admitted to afternoon and evening sessions from Tuesday evening until Saturday evening. CAMRA figures show that in 2006, over 66,000 people visited the festival over the course of the week and consumed some 350,000 pints of beer — one pint sold in less than half of every open second. Part of the huge improvement on 2005 (ticket sales were up 40%) was attributed by the festival organiser, Marc Holmes, to the move from Olympia to Earls Court, a much larger and easily accessible venue. [4] Since 2012 the event has returned to Olympia and remains massively popular.
As well as the beer, the festival offers entertainment such as live music and traditional pub games, as well as a variety of food stands. [5]
CAMRA held their first large beer festival in Covent Garden, London in September 1975. [2] It was a 4-day event that attracted 40,000 people who drank 150,000 pints of real ale. [6] Strictly speaking it was not a GBBF, but it has been considered the forerunner of the festival. The first "proper" GBBF was held in 1977 at Alexandra Palace. [2] The venue has moved between cities since it was first established but has settled in London since 1991. [2] The only years in which a festival was not held were 1984, 2020 and 2021, due to a fire at the venue and the COVID-19 pandemic respectively. [2] CAMRA announced that no festival will take place in 2024 due to renovations at Olympia and the lack of a suitable alternative venue. [7]
| Year | Location | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1977–1980 | Alexandra Palace, London | Held in tents in 1980 after the Palace burnt down. | [8] |
| 1981–1982 | Queens Hall, Leeds | Festival held outside London for the first time. | [9] |
| 1983 | Bingley Hall, Birmingham | [10] | |
| 1984 | – | No event held. | |
| 1985–1987 | Metropole, Brighton | ||
| 1988–1989 | Queens Hall, Leeds | ||
| 1990 | Metropole, Brighton | ||
| 1991 | Docklands Arena, London | ||
| 1992–2005 | Olympia, London | [11] [12] | |
| 2006–2011 | Earls Court, London | 2007 event celebrated as the 30th anniversary of the festival. 66,900 people attended in 2010. 62,446 people attended in 2011. | [13] [14] |
| 2012–2023 | Olympia, London | 2020 and 2021 events cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic. | [15] [16] [17] |
| 2024 | – | Cancelled due to venue selection difficulties / availability. | [7] |
| 2025 | National Exhibition Centre, Marston Green |
The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) is an independent voluntary consumer organisation headquartered in St Albans, which promotes real ale, cider and perry and traditional British pubs and clubs.
Real ale is the name coined by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) for beer that is "brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide".
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Beer has been brewed in England for thousands of years. As a beer brewing country, it is known for top fermented cask beer which finishes maturing in the cellar of the pub rather than at the brewery and is served with only natural carbonation.
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Breconshire Brewery was a brewery in Brecon in Powys, Wales. Since its establishment in 2002, the brewery has received numerous awards at Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) festivals and others. The brewery owns three pubs in Powys: two in Brecon and one in Llangynidr.
Jennings Brewery was established as a family concern in 1828 in the village of Lorton, between Buttermere and Cockermouth in the Lake District, England. The brewery was started by John Jennings Snr, son of William Jennings. Jennings brewed exclusively in Lorton until 1874 when its present home, the Castle Brewery in Cockermouth, was purchased. The Lorton brewery closed some five years later.
Beer in the United Kingdom has a long history, and has quite distinct traditions. Historically the main styles were top-fermented Bitters, Porters, Stouts and Milds, but after World War II lagers took over half the market by volume. The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) was founded in 1971 and has encouraged the preservation and revival of traditional styles of ale. In particular CAMRA has promoted cask conditioned beer, which completes its maturation in casks in the cellar of the pub rather than at the brewery. As of 2014 the UK drank 634 million imperial pints of cask ale, representing 60% of ale in pubs and restaurants and 17% of all beer in pubs. In total 42.42 million hectolitres of beer were produced in 2013 of which 48% was sold in the off-trade.
The Otley Brewing Company Limited, colloquially Otley Brewery, is a brewery located in Pontypridd, Wales. Established in 2005, it has won several awards, including the Champion Beer of Wales in 2006. The head brewer is Charlie Otley. In October 2016, the brewery was put up for sale by its owners. In February 2018 the brewery ceased trading.
Sharp's Brewery is a British brewery founded in 1994 in St Minver Lowlands, Rock, Cornwall, by Bill Sharp. Since 2011, the brewery has been owned by Molson Coors. It is best known for its flagship ale Doom Bar, named after the notoriously perilous Doom Bar sandbank in north Cornwall.
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Farnham Beer Exhibition, usually but informally known as Farnham Beerex, is the longest established beer festival in the United Kingdom to be held annually on the same premises. Held in Farnham, Surrey, the first Beerex took place in 1977, and serves as a charity fundraiser for the Lions Club of Farnham.
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